


The Goblet of Ice and Fire

by crossingwinter



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Gen, drabbleverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-10
Updated: 2015-03-21
Packaged: 2018-02-20 14:01:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 55,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2431463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossingwinter/pseuds/crossingwinter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You might belong in Gryffindor, where dwell the brave at heart...</p><p>--</p><p>Another <a href="http://seconddrabbleverse.tumblr.com/about">drabbleverse</a> project, this time set at Hogwarts/in the larger wizarding world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome!  
> If you're starting this because it's now complete on AO3, please note: because of the nature of this project, it is _unbeta-ed_. That said, I still think it's quite good.

Stannis looks up when he hears a light knock on the open door of his office and finds Davos standing there with an expectant expression on his face, holding a boxed lunch.

"Merlin, is it time already?" Stannis mutters, grinding his teeth and pulling out his pocketwatch.  Sure enough, it’s ten past noon.  "Blast."

"Busy morning?" Davos asks him as he bends down and digs out the stew that Selyse had packed away for his lunch.

"You wouldn’t believe.  Kids thinking that they can practice magic just because school starts next week.  I’ve been sending out letters all morning.  A complete nightmare."

Davos smiles at him.  It’s a crooked smile, and as Stannis follows him out of the office, locking his door behind him, he wonders how Davos could possibly smile on a Monday.

"Couldn’t be worse than the Spanish trying to adjust the trading restrictions on dragon hide.  I mean, come on now.  That’s been standard for years."

Stannis shakes his head in disbelief.  ”There are a number of things I could be saying…” he grumbles, and Davos chuckles.

"Don’t bother.  Trust me when I say Saan’s already said them all."

"Good," says Stannis.  "For all he’s as crooked as—"

"As if everyone here isn’t crooked," Davos says glancing around.  "It doesn’t help to say it, though."

They settle in a quiet corner of the cafeteria, and as Stannis takes a bite of his lunch, he realizes just how much of his mood came from simply not having eaten that day.  He’s glad it’s only Davos who had to put up with him.  Davos knows how to by now.

* * *

"Oh I will…" Catelyn sighs as she stares at the book lists.  "I will murder her if she’s not careful."

"Cat?" asks Ned, glancing up from his newspaper.  It’s still early, and none of the children are up yet.  And to think she’d been enjoying a quiet morning before this.

"Barbrey Dustin has gone and re-assigned the Charms textbook  _again_ ,” Catelyn says angrily.  ”This is the  _fifth_  time she’s done it since she took over the position.  I could  _kill_  her.”

"Again?" Ned replies incredulously.  "I didn’t even know there were that many Charms textbook options.  She should write her own if she cares about it that much."

"That’s new ones for all of them—I can’t even give Rickon Bran’s hand-me-down.  Oh, sweet Merlin, I will kill her if ever I meet her."

"Now, now," says Ned, a little alarmed.  "That hardly seems—"

"Your brother was well shut of her.  I wouldn’t put it past her if she never changes it again once our children have finished school."

"That might just be because she’s tried them all, though," Ned says, but his attempt to joke is lost on Catelyn, who is now scribbling a note on a piece of parchment, doing sums and figures.

"We’ll be fine," Ned says, getting up and rubbing his hands along her arms.  "It’ll be all right. It always is."

"Our budget will have to be tight next month," she says. "I should have waited to get Robb his present after they’d assigned books, but how would I have known."

"It’ll be fine, Cat.  You worry too much."

* * *

Renly knows he and Walda are going to have it out pretty quickly into the photoshoot.  She keeps dragging Jaime Lannister forward when he’s just too tall to stand in the front row, and if you put him in the front then no one even notices the rest of them, and doesn’t she realize that Jaime Lannister is  _not_ the point of this article?  The point of the article is the new class of aurors the Ministry is training up, and if  _Renly_  gets that better than Walda, something tells him that when Catelyn gets hold of her draft there’s going to be a lot of revising to be done.  

Walda, of course, never listens to  _his_  professional opinion, though, so why should he bother trying to help with hers?  If  _he_  had  _his_  way, he’d put the brunet in the front row—the one with curls and mischievous brown eyes that make Renly’s stomach twist a bit.

But it’s  _Walda’s_  article.  He’s  _just_  the photographer.  He’s  _only_  been at this job  _five years longer_  than she has been.

* * *

"Samwell, we barely knew ye," says Edd seriously, raising his butterbeer.  "May you return to us unharmed and with stories of how many seventh years you caught shagging in the restricted section."

"Here, here," everyone agrees and they all clink their firewhiskey and down it all.

"Now, Sam," says Jon, leaning forward, "You’ll keep me informed if any of them find themselves in trouble."  It’s an old promise, one he’s been making Sam give him ever since he got the job of Hogwarts’ librarian.

"Give him painful details if you find Arya shagging in the restricted secion," grins Grenn.  "Ow!" Jon elbows him at the same time that Pyp reaches over and smacks him on the arm.

"She’s a fifth year," Pyp berates.

"So?  I shagged in fifth year."

"Yes, painful details," Edd says somberly.  "Details that’ll make him wish he’d never clapped eyes on you to begin with."

"Don’t worry, Jon.  I won’t say a word," Sam smiles at him reassuringly.

"Wait—won’t say a word if you catch her shagging, or if she finds herself a boyfriend, because I think he wants to know that one," says Grenn, waggling his eyebrows at Jon.  "You know, so he can give him the proper ‘big brother’ treatment."

"Keep an eye on Rickon especially," Jon says loudly.  "I know my dad’ll be worried about him.  He’s only a firstie." He shakes his head, genuinely wondering how on earth he had ended up with this lot as friends.

* * *

"Stannis already gone?" Davos asks

"What?  I’m right hear," says Stan, poking his dad in the stomach.

"Oh, you stop now," Davos grins, pushing Stan lightly.  

"Dad’s gone, yeah.  Had work to get done," Shireen smiles.  

"Never a break with him.  Always has his nose to the grindstone," says Marya disapprovingly, and Shireen smiles wryly, but bites her tongue.  She does catch Devan’s eye, and he gives her a half smile.

"Mum," Devan says, "We’ve got to get down the train for the prefects meeting."

"Right," Marya says and she pulls her son in for a hug.  "Be good.  Well, I don’t have to worry about that with you.  Head Boy," she practically glows at the words.  "But all the same—set a good example for these two."  She rests hands on Stan’s and Steffon’s shoulders.  Steffon tries to shake her off, but Davos says, "Steffon," in a way that could only be described as fatherly and he stills.

"Bye!" Shireen says brightly and she and Devan weave their way down the platform, leaving the Davos and Marya to turn their attention to their last two children.

* * *

Ned waves his wand and the seat in the train car vanishes.  Arya pushes Bran’s chair and settles it into the gap.  With another wave of his wand, Ned immobilizes the wheels and Bran rolls his eyes.

"I might want to move, Dad," he says, releasing the leavers that press into the rubber tires of his chair.  

"Just don’t want you rolling about when the train gets going," Cat says gently.  "Have you got everything?  Your lunch?"  She looks around.  Sansa has already disappeared down the train to the Prefect’s car and Rickon has just sat down next to Arya across from Bran.  

"Yep.  Got everything," Bran smiles up at her.  She kissese his forehead, then goes around and kisses Arya’s and Rickon’s too.  

"You," Ned says to Rickon.  "No biting."  Rickon grins up at him.  "And be good.  Listen to your brother and your sisters."

"And if you’re lonely, write us a letter and we’ll sneak you out of school," says a familiar voice from outside.

"Robb!" Rickon squeals jumping up and running out into the hall.  Robb picks him up and hugs him.  Catelyn sees Jon leaning against the window, his arms crossed over his chest and a thoughtful expression on his face.  She turns her attention back to Robb.

"Someday you’ll be too big for that," he sighs.  "Don’t get too big at school, ok?  It’s not worth the time."

Catelyn feels Arya brush past her and a moment later, she’s squeezing Jon around the middle, and he’s mussing her hair, and Catelyn suppresses a huff because Arya had looked so neat and tidy up until then.

"You may even have me cheering for Gryffindor this year," Jon says.  

"You should always cheer for Gryffindor," says Robb, putting Rickon down and elbowing Jon.

"Base treachery, I’m afraid," Jon replies evenly at the same time that Bran asks, "What about Ravenclaw?"

"When you captain Ravenclaw, I’ll cheer you too.  How about that?" Jon grins at Bran, who nods his approval of the arrangement.  Jon turns back to Arya.  "I’ll miss you."

"Miss you more."

A whistle blows.  ”Right—be good,” Catelyn says quickly.  She kisses Bran again, and Arya squeezes between Ned and the door, Rickon on her heels and before she’s even had time for a full-on proper goodbye, she and Ned and Robb and Jon are back on the platform, waving goodbye as the Hogwarts Express pulls away.

* * *

Pod fiddles his quill between his fingers as the train chugs away, not sure what to write next.

_Dear Brienne,_

That bit was easy.  That’s how you start letters.  It’s what comes after that’s important.

 _Chin up—this’ll be better, I know it_.  Sounds too hearty and too much like he is trying to wipe away some of the hurt she’d written him about.   _You can do this_ , makes it sound like he didn’t think she could do the last one.   _I’m so excited for you, the training sounds like it’ll be amazing_  makes it sound as though he’s willfully ignoring everything bad in favor of the good.

So he’s stuck, because he can’t think of a middle ground, and just saying  _good luck_  doesn’t seem like a good idea because what if it strikes her as foreboding in some way?

The train continues making its way north, and Pod wishes he was better with words.

* * *

They have lunch together—the four of them around the scrubbed wooden table in the kitchen.

"Gryffindor," Robb says cheerfully.  "He has to be a Gryffindor.  I can spot them a mile away."

"What about Bran?" Jon teases, and Robb roles his eye.

"That was one time.  I got the rest of them."

"You thought I would be a Gryffindor.  And that only leaves Bran, Sansa, and Arya.  So you have a fifty percent shot of being right at this point."

"It would be nice to have another Hufflepuff in the family," Ned says idly.

It’s lovely to have Robb home for a lunch.  He doesn’t come home nearly as often as he used to these days, spending long hours at the Ministry and then going straight home.  She wishes he came home more frequently, but that was just the mother in her.  What would she do now that all of her children were out of the house?  She might get some peace and quiet for a change.

Robb stays longer than Jon does, and before he leaves, she takes digs out the envelope and produces two purple tickets.  ”I got them for you for your birthday,” she says pleased.  ”You always did like their music.”

Robb’s eyes go wide and he grins at her.  ”These sold out so fast, mum!  Thank you!”  He gives her a hug so tight she almost goes dizzy, kisses her cheek and a moment later, he’s gone, undoubtedly off to make sure he can have an evening to go see the Weird Sisters.

* * *

"You don’t think it’ll be very different, do you?" Tommen asks her quietly.  Ser Pounce is sitting on the seat next to him—saving it for Shireen, he tells some fifth years who come in looking for places to sit—purring loudly as Tommen runs his hands along the cat’s eyebrows.  

"It’ll be fine, Tommen," Myrcella says gently.  "Why—you don’t think anyone’ll give you trouble for it, do you?"

Tommen shakes his head.  ”No.  No…I…it’s just…they don’t think…I don’t know.”  He looks around the cabin.  There’s a sleeping seventh year, and a fourth year reading, but it’s not anyone that they know, not until Shireen gets back.

"What is it," she says, trying to sound as stern as possible, and Tommen grimaces.  

"Well…what if they think we’ll get special treatment, or something?"

"Do you think Uncle Tyrion will treat us any differently than anyone else?"

"No, I don’t…but not everyone’ll know that."  He’s looking at the cat and not at her, and she sighs.

"Well, anyone who thinks that is stupid.  We won’t get special treatment.  I’d be surprised if Uncle Tyrion even has time to say hello to us.  If anything, I think things’ll be better now that Joff’s finished."

Tommen sits there disconsolately, but he pulls a smile onto his face, and when Shireen comes and joins them after her prefect’s meeting, he joins in their game of exploding snap with gusto.

* * *

He always forgets how fucking small they are when they first get here.  Tiny things with tiny voices.  By the time they are done with their first year, they’re a bit bigger, a bit older, a bit wiser, but they all stare at him in a mixture of confusion and horror as he hollers, “First years.  This way,” and waves his lamp around so they’ll see him.  As if they could miss him.  They’re all puny and he’s bloody tall, isn’t he?

He stares down at them all, gathered in their black robes all new and neat and unworn before and he grunts, “Right, this all of you then?”  A few of them mumble that they think so and without another word Sandor turns on his heel and marches them down the pathway towards the boats.  

This lot’s a quiet lot, and they don’t whisper among themselves behind him as they make their way down to the water and climb into the boats, no more than four to each one, and with a wave of his wand, he sends them all on their way.  Dondarrion’ll be on the other side waiting for them so Sandor doesn’t even bother getting in a boat and seeing them across.  He does watch them, though.  In case the giant squid causes trouble.

When they’re no more than dots on the other side of the lake, he turns and marches back towards the cabin by the forest.  He really should have fucking quit this job already.

* * *

"Merlin, they’re so small," Arya hears Ned say down the table and she rolls her eyes at him.  They’re not  _that_  tiny.  They’re smalll, sure, but tiny—Rickon had been tiny years ago, but he wasn’t now.  He was mid-sized now, and probably within two years he’d be taller than she was. Not that everyone wasn’t taller than she was.  

She watches him closely, and smiles at him when he looks around.  He’s very pale, but she’s sure that’s just nerves.  She remembers being terrified of being sorted, of watching as Sansa and Robb sat at the Gryffindor table nodding at her, and Jon waved at her from Slytherin and she’d wondered if she’d really belonged in either house.  

Professor Dondarrion reads through the list, and she watches as the line begins to diminish as slowly relieved looking first years make their ways to the four long house tables.  

"Rickon Stark," calls Dondarrion, and he starts and hurries forward, blushing now.  Arya looks over at Bran, who sticks his tongue out at her, and then at Sansa, who smiles, then back to Rickon.

When Bran had been sorted, it had taken the hat ages to stick him in Ravenclaw.  They’d had to bring the hat down to him because he couldn’t get his chair up the steps to the stool.  And for her, it had taken less than three seconds.  But Rickon…it was taking Rickon a long while.

"Slytherin!" The hat calls out cheerily, and Arya feels her eyes widen.  She glances at Sansa, who also looks confused, then at Bran, who is clearly considering the situation before he shrugs.  Rickon looks most perturbed of them all though as he passes their tables to the one that’s cheering for him.  And when he sits down, he’s got a frown on his face that’s bigger than Arya’s ever seen.

* * *

Brienne sits at a desk in a tiny cubicle that is a little too cramped for someone her size, staring at the stack of paperwork she has to file before she can officially enroll.

There’s a lot of noise in the office, people chatting, some radio, and considering that it’s a weekend night, she would have thought it would be dead, but it’s not.  People are working, laughing, muttering under their breath as they stare at things.  It’s all to familiar, and yet somehow completely different.

It’s strange, really.  She’d never thought she’d end up actually being accepted.  Aurors were the elite, and while she was very good and always had been, she’d never been quite up to snuff the way others seemed to be.  Or maybe they’d just wanted her to feel that way.  Or, her father would say, she’s primed to feel that way now because of the…

 _Brienne Tarth_ , she writes in neat lettering along the top of the first piece of parchment.   _Nominated by Goodwin Brown_.  She writes the date along the top.

Goodwin hadn’t nominated anyone but her for special training.  That much, at least, she could be pleased with.  None of them would follow her here and she could really get some sort of fresh start, work with people who weren’t cruel and mean and…

She’s not going to think about it—she’s  _not_.  Because she got out.  And anywhere was better than there.

* * *

Robb’s late, and Theon checks his watch again.  Robb’s always had an interesting relationship with time, but this is late, even for Robb, so he orders another firewhiskey, letting it burn the back of his throat as he downs it.  He forces his hand not to tremble as he puts the tumbler back on the table.

There’s nothing to be nervous about.  He’s back, now.  Back, and on leave, and nothing to worry about.  Robb’s just late, is all.  He’s being silly.

Robb bursts out of the fireplace and dusts himself off, catches sight of Theon and grins broadly.  ”Welcome home!” he calls, edging his way through the cramped pub and giving Theon a quick hug before settling down next to him.

"Thanks," Theon smiles.

"Did you chip a tooth?" Robb asks.

 _No_. Theon wants to say, but he shrugs and says, “Occupational hazard,” as nonchalantly as he can.

"Right.  Tell me about Egypt," Robb says, and he gestures for the bartender to bring him a drink.

* * *

Rhaenys is sure she knows before most of her family does that mother’s sick again.  She always knows first.  Because mother looks at her with wide eyes and the sort of expression that just screams “fuck” hidden beneath a calm surface.  Rhaenys quietly suggests that she go to St. Mungo’s, helps her pack a bag, and then notifies the family that Elia is in the ward again, and that they are working on it.

They do their best to keep it out of the papers when it happens.  The first time that she went in had been when grandfather was still alive, and everyone had speculated as to the cause of her illness, had expressed their sympathy, their love.  And of course, with grandfather dead now, such articles had a very different tone to them, a very different…

Grandmother says that the newspapers like to show that they have free will, that they  _weren’t_  under grandfather’s thumb for so many years.  Father says it’s because they haven’t anything better to do than speculate about the lives of those whom society would sooner pretend didn’t exist.  Aegon just gets angry and it takes all of grandmother’s and mother’s finesse to keep him from writing angry letters to the editor.  Viserys says it is just misdirected anger—blame everyone still living for the crimes of the dead.

It scares her to think that—scares her more than mother having to go back to the hospital in truth.  She knows enough about experimental medicine to know that ideas can be more damaging than any other ailment of the body.  

* * *

“‘It’s not every day that Witch Weekly is invited into the Ministry to do a piece on staffing updates.  However given the shifts in staffing that have happened lately, as Tywin Lannister finally routs the last of Aerys Targaryen’s influences in the government, Walda Frey, Witch Weekly Correspondant, was invited in to do a piece on the’—Look, Sansa.  there’s a  _picture_.”

Sansa looks up from her Charms book as Jeyne turns the magazine around and shoves it across the table to show her. There’s a group of about twenty or thirty people, standing tall and proud, some of them chatting, a few others winking out at her.  Jaime Lannister stands front and center, his green eyes flashing, a smirk on his face, and to his right stands—“Merlin but Loras is hot,” Sansa says, pointing to him.  ”I’d forgotten.  I didn’t know he was an Auror.”

"Looks like it," says Jeyne, looking at the photograph again.  "He’s pretty fine, but I prefer a more mature man, myself."

"Jeyne," Sansa hisses, glancing up at the teacher’s table as though Professor Dondarrion could hear her.  "That’s so inappropriate."

Jeyne shrugs.  ”As you like.  You’re lucky though, with him as your head of house.  Dustin’s not near as interesting.”

* * *

Robb’s noticed that Theon’s jumpy.  It’s hard not to see.  Theon had always been remarkably cavalier all the time.  It was always the first thing that people noticed about him. So seeing Theon withdrawn is…well it’s not right.  It’s not normal.  And Robb’s not sure he believes Theon about that chipped tooth, either.  Why hadn’t he had it it fixed up?  Robb doesn’t know if you can use Skelegrow on teeth, but they’re made of bone, so surely you can, and Theon had always taken very good care of his teeth, using whitening solutions on them and everything.

He twitches sometimes too.  And startles easily.  And never sits with his back to the wall.  And Robb doesn’t know how to ask about it, so he doesn’t, he just waits and hopes that Theon’ll tell him what happened in Egypt that shook him up that much.

* * *

The bell rings loudly and Sansa and Devan look at one another in shock.  Surely the prefects meeting can’t be over just yet—they had only just sat down to lunch.  But there it is, and every single prefect is going to be late to whichever class they have next.  How they had missed everyone slowly leaving the Great Hall, Sansa isn’t sure as she clambers over the bench and Devan says a quick, “Right—we’ll pick this up on Friday, then,” and everyone hurries to class.

Sansa hates being late, hates it, and she kicks herself mentally for her poor timing, as she and Ned hurry down to the dungeons for their first Charms class of the year.  But as much as she hates being late, she can’t help but feel as though it’s ten times worse because it’s Charms. Dustin  _hates_  her.  Dustin has always hated her.  She’d hated Jon too.  Arya and Bran hadn’t mentioned any specific treatment one way or another, but Dustin truly hated Sansa.

"She’s going to be in a state, isn’t she?" Ned mutters to her as the sound of their feet echo through the stone corridors.

"Undoubtedly," Sansa says.  "I’m sorry time got away from us."

"Happens," Ned replies easily.  He opens the door for her, and a moment later, she hears Professor Dustin saying, "Oh good.  The prefects have decided to join us."

Sansa winces.  “I’m sorry, Professor Dustin,” she begins, “The meeting ran over.  We came down as quickly as we could.”

"Ten points each, I think.  Now sit down."

Sansa flushes, hating the punishment, even if she knows they deserve it—even though they  _shouldn’t_  as it  _was_  for the good of the school after all.  Ned grimaces at her and they sit down next to one another, and it’s only when she spots Jeyne across the way that she realizes that she was supposed to have sat with her.  Dustin assigns seats for the full year, and Jeyne would be stuck with Jorelle Mormont, which wouldn’t be so bad except that they hadn’t spoken to one another since Jorelle had stolen Jeyne’s boyfriend in fifth year.  

Hot shame bubbles in Sansa’s throat and she stares down at her hands, not even listening to what Dustin’s saying, and wishing that she didn’t notice the way that Ned was tilting his chair back on two legs.

* * *

Jeyne refuses to sit with Sansa in Transfiguration, even though Sansa spends the entire walk up from Potions apologizing.  Some friend she was, leaving her alone with Mormont for the entire year while she sat next to Ned Dayne. 

"Guess now that Joffrey’s gone, you’ve found yourself another blonde, then," she snaps as they climb up to the third floor.  She doesn’t even care that Ned is only ten paces back from them, laughing loudly with his friends.  She doesn’t care about Sansa’s embarrassed by the comment—Sansa had  _humiliated_  her, leaving her alone like that with Mormont.  Sansa  _knows_  how Mormont is, and knows how Jeyne feels about her.  Everyone does.  But Sansa knows  _more_.  

"Jeyne—that’s not how it is.  Please," Sansa begs.  Good.  Let her beg.  Let her be sad.  Jeyne’s angry, and when Jeyne’s angry, she is harsher than ever Sansa is.  She’ll be over it soon.  She always is.  And she and Sansa will go back to being the way that they are.  But Merlin, sometimes it’s hard being friends with Sansa Stark.  She’s so perfect, and intelligent, and kind, and  _beautiful_  that no one ever notices plain Jeyne Poole standing next to her.  It would have been better if she’d had a long horsey face like her sister. 

"Poole?"

Jeyne looks up and realizes that Professor Dondarrion had asked her something.  She had no idea what.  “Sorry, Professor.  I must have missed it.”  He raises his eyebrows at her, and she feels herself growing hot.  Adding insult to injury, she supposes.  What’s one more embarrassment today?  Even if it is from Dondarrion, who looks at her with his fine brown eyes and that subtle smile of approval that makes her feel like she  _is_ a good witch after all.

He’s not smiling now, though.  He’s frowning at her in disappointment, and Jeyne suddenly feels intensely that she wants to cry.

* * *

Myrcella’s grimacing again, and Shireen bites her lip.  Studying with Myrcella is one of the best things about Hogwarts in truth.  They’d never been close growing up, because their fathers weren’t close, but neither of them had ended up in Gryffindor like their fathers—they’d been Ravenclaw.   And that moment, when the Sorting Hat had sent them both to the same house and everyone thought they were twins was perhaps one of the most exciting in Shireen’s life.  She didn’t have a sister, but spending evenings in the library with Myrcella, reading, writing, getting into debates about magical theory that put Dondarrion’s inconsistent teaching methods to shame was what made Shireen love this place as much as she did.

So seeing Myrcella grimace over her textbooks is always hard.

Myrcella doesn’t talk about her dyslexia, but Shireen knows it’s there, always bubbling beneath the surface.  She says she reads slowly to absorb when most people comment on it, and she certainly does absorb, because it can sometimes take her five tries to get a word from the page into her mind.  And the reading Dondarrion had set them is very tricky tonight.

Shireen wishes there was something she could do to help—but Myrcella is proud, and any offer to explain the reading so she doesn’t have to do it is always met with a stony disapproval. 

She hears laughter and stiffens, looking around.  A group of first years down the row are giggling profusely at something that one of them had just said.  Shireen gets to her feet and stalks over, because if Myrcella has trouble reading, she refuses to let it be harder for her because she can’t focus.

"Having fun?" she asks sweetly, looking down at them.  It’s Rickon Stark, she recognizes with a jolt, who is grinning up at her sheepishly.

"Sorry, Shireen," he says.  "I’ll be quiet."

"See that you do," and then, to emphasize the point, and because first years are adorable thinking that one point is a big deal, she says, "a point from Slytherin."  His face falls as she strolls away, and when she settles at the desk across from Myrcella, she sees her cousin smiling.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jon, Rickon, Arya, Hot Pie, Lommy, Weasel, Gendry, Oberyn, Ellaria, Barbrey, Stannis, Asha, Bran, Rhaenys, Viserys, Daenerys, Jorah, Grey Worm, Melisandre, Missandei, Ned, Catelyn, Petyr, Allyria, Arthur, Edric, Sam, Gilly, Jeyne, Sansa, Lyanna, Jorelle, Sandor, Arianne, Walda, Roslin, Theon, Robert Arryn, Rhaella, Cersei

_Dear Rickon,_

_First of all—congratulations on being sorted into the **best**  house of them all.  Seriously—Slytherin is significantly better than the rest, and you’ll never once feel alone there, and you’ll always have friends to come back to and a good group to help push you forward and keep you thinking.  (Also—it’s nice to have someone else in the family who’s in Slytherin.  You and me—we can keep everything nice and balanced.)_

_Second of all—Bran said you were feeling lonely, and like you had let the family down.  You haven’t.  I promise.  Just because you’re in Slytherin doesn’t mean anything. You’re a Stark first and foremost.  Not all of us are Gryffindors.  Dad wasn’t; Aunt Lyanna wasn’t; Uncle Benjen wasn’t; Bran isn’t; I’m not—you’re in stellar company if I do say so myself._

_I know the start of school is hard.  Being away from home for the first time is really tough, and I remember feeling so far away from Robb when we got going.  But that distance only gets the better of you if you allow it, and when you’re off on your own, and far away (and you’ll realize that the Slytherin common room isn’t actually as far as it feels from Gryffindor Tower, or Ravenclaw Tower), that doesn’t mean that we have written you off in a little isolated island and you don’t matter, somehow.  You are very important—especially because all Slytherins are more important than everyone else._

_If you’re ever feeling down and out, feel free to write.  Or go hunt down Bran or Arya or Sansa.  I bet you they’ll drop everything to spend time with you._

_Chin up, and enjoy yourself!  It goes by far too quickly._

_Jon_

* * *

"I was thinking about making cookies," Hot Pie says, and Arya’s spoon stops halfway to her mouth.  

"Can you make cookies here?  Do the elves let you use the kitchen?" she asks, confused.  Hot Pie smiles at her.

“‘Course you can,” he replies eagerly.  ”There’s a room on the seventh floor—all sorts of baking sheets and ovens and mixing things.  Best kitchen I’ve ever seen.  I just need to ask the elves for ingredients.  Thought it might be nice to bring some homemade cookies to the first meeting.”

Arya’s soup spoon continues its journey to her mouth and she smiles thoughtfully.  ”I’d quite like to taste something you’d baked,” she says.  ”Lommy’s still going on about those cinnamon buns you made him last Christmas.”  She nudges Lommy in the ribs.

Hot Pie blushes.  If Lommy’s been going on about his cinnamon buns, he’d never heard any of that.

"Of course," Lommy interjects, "If you bring homemade cookies to the first meeting, that sets a precedent.  You’ll have to bring them to all the rest of them."

Hot Pie thinks of the wide wooden table, melting butter and mixing chocolate, the cooling racks he’d tested when making a birthday cake to send to Gendry last year. He thinks of the smell of caramel sauce to dribble on top of cup cakes with buttercream frosting and the mixing bowl that looks like it might have the perfect slope for whipping egg whites and he suppresses a smile because he can’t think of a better way to de-stress while preparing for his NEWTs.  ”Oh no,” he says dryly, “Whatever will I do?  What  _have_ I gotten myself into?”

* * *

He hears Ellaria come downstairs and knows that he has been up all night again.  The sound of her feet on the creaking floorboards is as loud as if he had shattered every window in London compared to the stillness of his thoughts.

She bends down over his shoulder and wraps her arms around his chest, kissing his neck and saying nothing, and he realizes he had been cold, too.  Autumn has arrived, arrived the day he and Ellaria went to put the girls on the train, but sitting for hours before the grate of a fire that had been emptied, had not noticed the cold until Ellaria came to warm him.

"She’ll pull through," Ellaria says, "She always does."  

"So far," Oberyn says quietly, and Ellaria kisses his cheek.  It’s one of the magical things about Ellaria—one of the things he would never once have guessed when she had strolled into his life.  She always knows what he is thinking, even when he himself doesn’t know.  She always knows his mind, whether he’s reeling with new information, or if he’s spent the night staring out the window wondering if this time, his sister will really die.

"She’s a fighter," Ellaria says.  "Like you.  Come to bed."  She takes his hand and pulls him from his chair and he follows her.

* * *

She’s fully aware it’s petty.  She’s been teaching teenagers long enough to know that much.  But she can’t help but feel a little pleased with herself that it might get Cat Tully’s knickers in a twist, and after all these years, the concept of getting Cat Tully’s knickers in a twist was just about all Barbrey needed to feel good about her day.

Granted, she has no idea if Sansa Stark  _tells_  her mother about Barbrey’s teaching methods.  She wouldn’t be surprised if she doesn’t.  Sansa Stark’s always biting her tongue and adhering to the status quo and doesn’t seek to ruffle feathers at all.  It’s part of what made her Head Girl to begin with—a fondness for rules and the inability to see that sometimes rules can get you into more trouble than breaking them.  She’s so unlike Brandon that way.  Brandon had always done exactly what he wanted  _when_  he wanted.  Him and Lyanna both.  Arya was a little more that way, but Sansa—Sansa was prim and perfect and looked and acted all too much like Cat Tully.  

She hadn’t even mourned Brandon in the end—she’d gone and shacked up with his brother and popped out five children, regardless of the fact he had a kid by some other woman.  She probably bit her tongue and sucked it up, the way that Sansa sucks it up.  Barbrey would have raged and gotten rid of the little bastard, and she said that as his former head of house.  

She knew it was petty—hating her after all these years.  But there was some grim pleasure in knowing that she’d be called petty for it, and so she clung to it even harder.

Stannis Baratheon would never have been so foolish as to expect that life would be easy. That is something that Robert would have done, or Renly would do.  Robert always seemed to think that life will be easy, and good, and that he wouldn’t have any trouble with anything ever.  Stannis expects everything that can go wrong will go wrong and so far in his life, that has happened an inordinate amount.

So he is unsurprised when the head of his department announces that he should oversee a joint task-force with the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad and that he should thus attend weekly meetings with a member of their department.  

Asha Greyjoy isn’t what you would call a…a…no—that’s going about it the wrong way.  Asha Greyjoy is stubborn, and unprofessional to the extreme, and when she arrives in the conference room, she kicks her feet up onto the table, ant tips her chair back with a grin on her face. She never reads the meeting agendas in advance and always forgets a quill.  What he  _will_  say for her is that, while she never  _seems_  to pay attention, during their meetings, she can rattle off stats and policies without batting her eyelash.  But that almost makes it worse.  How can someone so tiresome be so competent?

* * *

After he’d fallen, he’d dreamed of a crow with three eyes that was telling him to fly.  Bran had been scared to.  He’d never flown before—mum didn’t let him  _near_  the broomsticks because they were too big for him, and the toy broomsticks they had were so old that they barely got six inches off the ground.  He had been scared to fly in that dream, but he’d done it in the end, looping through the sky as if he’d had wings and was soaring like a bird.

Later, in dreams, Bran had asked the bird if he would walk again.

"No," the crow had said, "But you will fly."

And Bran had.  Bran had, because you didn’t need legs to fly the way you did to run—he just needed to hook them into the stirrups of his broom so that they wouldn’t create any drag and he was off—zooming around the field behind their house, soaring around the Hogwarts grounds on Arya’s broom in his first year when he wasn’t allowed his own, and then on the broom Robb and Jon had bought for him when he’d made Ravenclaw Seeker.

There’s nothing in the world like flying—going so fast that your face feels like it’ll freeze because it’s got icy air beating against it.  Bran wishes he could fly inside the castle, but the only time he had tried, Professor Dustin had chewed him out for nearly fifteen minutes.  He doubts that Professor Lannister would allow it, even if he’s new.  More’s the pity—because it would be so easy to get from place to place—not worrying if the charms on his wheelchair would accomodate the ancient magic of the Hogwarts stairs.

He supposes that there’s something to be said for restricting himself, keeping himself from flying all the time because it makes it that much sweeter when he does get into the air again.  The sweetness of flight also almost makes it so that he feels happy when he settles back into his chair afterwards, cheeks flushed and eyes bright with excitement.

* * *

She looks a lot like his mother.  Viserys has always thought so.  Everyone always says she looks like Elia—but he’s pretty sure they stopped the comparison when they saw her coloring.  Rhaenys has his mother’s cheekbones and her eyes are the same shape, if not the same color, and when she gets a look of nervous concern on her face, the similarities become all that much more pronounced.

She’s quiet as they walk through London together, her purple scrubs designating her as a doctor rather than a healer, and he sees the way that she pulls her lips so that they seem to stack more on top of one another, rather than resting closed the way that lips usually do.

“She’ll be all right,” he says gently, but Rhaenys doesn’t say anything.  She never does when her mother is ill. 

When Viserys had been younger, he had always thought that he and Rhaenys could talk about anything.  They’d always been able to, even when they’d been in different houses.  But when she’d gone on to study healing, that had all changed, and suddenly there were great swaths of nothingness that he never seems to be able to get across, no matter how hard he tries.

He tries not to let it get to him—he really does.  He knows it shouldn’t.  But Viserys has always been selfish—as Dany always reminded him when they’d been  younger, slamming her door shut and screaming at him to stop and consider other people sometimes.  He’s always been selfish, and needy, and it’s just how he is.  He can’t very well get rid of that part of him.  So it doesn’t surprise him at all that he feels bitter when he drops Rhaenys off at the hospital after lunch, and she doesn’t say a word—not one.  

* * *

Daenerys leaps out of the way just in time and the flame misses her.  Unfortunately, the great spikes on the end of the dragon’s tail catch her shoulder and she lets out a curse, wincing and reaching with her other arm to clutch at the wound.

There’s blood on her hand, a lot of blood, and she fumbles for her wand to close the wound while the Horntail roars again.

"Y’ok there Dany?" she hears someone call.

"It got me, but I’ll be fine.  Merlin this one’s  _mean.”_

"Worried about her eggs," says Jorah.  "Doesn’t want anyone hurting her children."

"Yeah—I got that," Daenerys mutters.  The wound in her shoulder is closed now, but her skin still stings and she hopes that the bone didn’t get hurt.  She tucks her wand away again, then calls out, "Stunners, then?"

"On three," Grey Worm responds from somewhere to her left.  

"One, two,—" Dany throws herself out from behind the rock and fires red jets of light at the dragon.

* * *

Every year, in mid-September, a small field in northern England fills with a variety of people.  Should there be any bystanders—and usually there are not—these bystanders have been known to remark upon the bizarre clothing the group of people wears—cloaks and pointy hats in all sorts of colors, as though they think they are magicians. These magicians, or whatever they are, the group of people holds up long thin flashlights, as if trying to send beams of light to the sky in some sort of odd salute, and everyone is silent, everyone is somber.

Ned holds Cat’s hand as they hold their wands aloft, and he does his best to keep his eyes dry of tears.  After all these years, it’s easy for him to go by as if his brother and sister are still alive out there, living their lives, laughing and happy; at the very least, it doesn’t hurt to think of them dead.

But on Memorial Day, it’s hard to, because on Memorial Day, he remembers Brandon’s “Oh, cheer up, Ned—it’ll all be fine.  You worry too much,” and Lyanna’s “Promise me, Ned.  Promise me—you have to—” and he hears their voices as clearly as if they were standing next to him.

They had always been the wild ones.  They had always been the ones who laughed and joked and made light of the world, who pulled pranks on the school and always got Connington blamed for it because no one expected a Gryffindor and a Slytherin to work together at something in those days.  He’d always be forewarned—not because they told him (though sometimes he overheard that code phrase of “mischeif managed”) but because he saw the light in their eyes, a joy so bright only war could quench it.

A breeze ruffles the back of his neck, and he wonders if Benjen is here somewhere.  He hopes he is, and should invite him round for dinner sometime soon. He hopes that Benjen will help him miss them less—or maybe make him miss them more. He’s not sure what would be best.

* * *

Allyria can’t remember her face.  She was too young when it had all happened.  But she goes with Arthur to the Memorial anyway because that’s what you do for your sister, for your brother.

They don’t keep photographs in their house.  She’s never known why.  She’s always assumed that it makes Arthur sad to see the faces of the dead, the faces of those he couldn’t save.  (She’d once heard a whisper that Ashara had jumped in front of a killing curse; the whisperer seemed to imply that she’d wanted to die.)  Arthur doesn’t like looking at Ned either.  Ned looks too much like Allyn, probably.  Arthur doesn’t like thinking about the past.  She’s also quite sure he doesn’t like thinking about the future.

Arthur doesn’t mind her, though.  She doesn’t look like Ashara, or Allyn.  She looks like him, except with longer hair and a narrower build.  When she’d been at school and everyone had found out she was related to Arthur, they had all taken to comparing her to him, and the comparison was always favorable because she looks like him.

She doesn’t think she’s much like him though, apart from looks.  She doesn’t even think she’s very much like Ned with his carefree and welcoming demeanor.  She’s always imagined that she’s more like Ashara—slightly distant, but loving in her own way.  But she’ll never know if that’s true.  Arthur is the only one who remembers Ashara anymore, and Arthur never talks about Ashara.

* * *

People disperse in their own time, in their own quiet way, and Ned looks around to see if Benjen did come after all.  He doesn’t see his brother, and pauses only when Cat stops short next to him.

"Petyr?" he hears her breathe, and he feels her hand slip out of his own as she opens her arms for the man he had only just noticed.

"Cat," Baelish says softly, hugging her, and kissing her cheek, taking his time in a way that Ned does not particularly like.

"How have you been?" Catelyn asks, her voice sounding too happy for the somber atmosphere and she lowers her voice to hiss excitedly.

"Well.  Very well.  Can’t say I’m complaining.  And yourself?  How’s the family?"  He doesn’t look at Ned, and a frown crosses Ned’s face and he knows he shouldn’t glower at the man.  It’s an indignity ill befitting the event.  But he can’t help it.  

"All good.  You’ll be pleased: my youngest is in Slytherin," Cat says quietly.  They’ve begun walking towards the end of the field, and Ned has no choice but to follow as though he is some sort of stray puppy.

"Really?" he hears Baelish say.  "And here I was thinking you’d have nothing but Gryffindors."  The pleasure in Baelish’s voice makes Ned wish desperately that at least one of his children had been sorted into Hufflepuff.  Even Jon had been a Slytherin, but he was less upset by that.

"The majority," Cat says happily.  "Just the youngest two not."  

"Well, I’ll have to take him out to lunch during a holiday.  Give him some old Slytherin advice," Baelish says, and Ned hears a smirk.

"I’m sure he’d be delighted," Cat says warmly.  She turns back to Ned and catches sight of his expression.  He sees curiosity cross her face, her head tilting, her brow furrowing.  "Well, it was lovely to see you," she says to him.

"I’ll send along an owl," Baelish says.

"Please," Cat says, and she crosses back to Ned, taking his hand again, and they disapparate together.

* * *

Sam always takes Wednesday nights off.  There’s usually a lull, what with the week halfway done.  The Gobstones club meets on Wednesdays, and that usually draws a fair number away from their studies.  So he leaves the Library in the capable hands of the Head Boy and Girl and makes his way to the edge of the grounds before disapparating.  Most nights, he’s off to London—to see Jon and the rest, who usually spend half the night arguing about whether or not they’ll actually do a full on pub crawl.

Tonight though, Sam doesn’t go to London.  Memorial Day’s a time for family, and Jon’s home with his dad, and Grenn and Pyp and Edd had made no noise about carrying on without him.  They’re probably at home too.  But Sam doesn’t want to go home—not even for Memorial Day—so he makes his way down to the Three Broomsticks, an anthology of  _The Adventures of Martin Miggs the Mad Muggle_ tucked under his arm for a pint and an evening with his comics.

The pub is nearly empty—which doesn’t surprise Sam.  What does surprise him is the presence of a new barmaid, one with mousy brown hair and watery eyes.  She’s young—probably around his age—but he’s never seen her before, and when he asks her for a pint of butterbeer, she starts and looks down and away as she nods.  When she brings it to him, she nearly sloshes it over herself in nervousness.

"I’m sorry," she mumbles.

"Don’t worry about it," he smiles up at her.  It’s the first time that she makes eye contact with him and her eyes look like spots of amber in her face—so sad, so nervous.  And Sam decides that at some point, that night, he’s going to make her smile.

* * *

Jeyne leaves Sansa to sit by herself in Transfiguration  _again_ , and Sansa can’t help but feel upset by it.  This is the longest time that Jeyne has gone without speaking to her, and Sansa doesn’t know  _what_  to do to fix it.  She doesn’t know if there’s anything she can do, honestly.  Jeyne surely must realize that Sansa didn’t mean to leave her with Mormont all year in Charms.  She wouldn’t do that.  This was worse than any fight she’d ever had with Arya, and Sansa has half a mind to tell her, except she’s sure that will make everything worse.

She’s digging through her bag for a fresh piece of parchment when the door to the classroom opens and Pod Payne slips in and, spotting the empty seat next to Sansa, beelines for it.

"Mr. Payne?" Dondarrion’s voice cuts through the quiet room like a knife.

"Sorry, Profess—sir—Professor—sir," Pod mutters.  "I was meeting with Professor Lannister."

Dondarrion raises an eyebrow and Pod digs a slip of parchment out of the pockets of his robes and hands it to Dondarrion.  Dondarrion reads it, then pockets it and turns back to the blackboard.

"You haven’t got a quill, have you?  I mean an extra one.  If you’re not using it," Pod asks Sansa quietly.

"Of course," she smiles and pulls one from her bag.  He’s rooting around in his own for something and then he turns to her again, blushing.  

"And an extra piece of parchment?"

Sansa’s smile grows even wider and she hands one to him.  Pod flushes and behind him, Sansa sees Jeyne glaring and feels her smile slide off her face and she quickly turns to face front again.

* * *

"There’s a First Year over there," Lommy says, and Hot Pie groans.

"I bet she doesn’t even have a broom," he mutters.  "They aren’t allowed them still."

"So?" snaps Arya.  "I didn’t when I showed up First Year."  She hadn’t owned one yet. and Jon and Robb hadn’t let her borrow their brooms, even if it was only for Broom Club and not for actual Quidditch Practice.  Robb had been convinced she’d fall off, even through she’d been flying for ages at home, and it was hard to coordinate it with Jon, given how far away the Slytherins lived.  She’d shown up for Broom Club on the very first day, feeling so small compared to everyone else, but twice as determined and it had been Gendry who’d lent her his broom, even if it meant he couldn’t fly half so much as the rest of the club.

"Yeah—but," Hot Pie fumbles for words and she glares at him, turns on her heels, shoulders her broom, and marches over to the girl.

"Hello, What’s your name?" Arya asks.

"Weasel," the girl mutters.  

"Weasel?" Arya asks, wondering if she’d heard properly.

"Well…that’s what they call me, anyway."

"Who’s they?" Arya asks. Weasel just jerks her head and looks around nervously.  Arya bends down a little so their faces are level.  "Do you know how to fly?"

"A bit," Weasel squeaks.  Although flying is not one of those things that should ever be done in "bits," Arya smiles and slides her broom from her shoulder.

"Want a go?"  Weasel’s eyes grow wide and she nods, and Arya helps her mount up.  "Don’t go to high," Arya calls as she takes off.  "I don’t want you falling and killing yourself."

* * *

It’s always been easy for Lyanna.  Jorelle doesn’t know why.  

No—that’s wrong.  She does know why.  Lyanna’s the baby of the family, and can do no ill, and in a family where sisters’ ages span decades, that means she’s not just mother’s baby girl, but she’s Dacey’s and Alysanne’s as well.  Lyanna can do no wrong, and thunders around Hogwarts like she owns the place.  

She’s a true Gryffindor that way, Jorelle supposes.  Gryffindors always act like they own the place.

She’s been at Hogwarts for two years longer than Lyanna, and she wishes to hell that people didn’t expect her to be more like her little sister.  She’s older, she got here first.  They should be expecting Lyanna to be like  _her_ and not the other way around. _  
_

But she’s always felt a little bit lost in the crowd, a little less special than everyone around her—so it doesn’t surprise her at all that everyone gravitates to Lyanna immediately and leaves her wondering where all her friends had gone.

* * *

The thing with Jeyne keeps Sansa up all night, and when Saturday rolls around, she watches the way the sky creeps pink in through the window of her dormitory.  Exhausted, but restless, she pulls herself from her bed, tugs a jumper over her head, and makes her way down through the castle.  

She likes Hogwarts at dawn.  She’s never been much of a night owl, never studying til all hours of the night the way that her siblings do.  Sansa likes the crispness of thought that comes in the morning, and the stillness that accompanies the emptiness of the corridors.

She makes her way down to the lake, feeling dew seeping into her socks and the bottoms of her jeans and she listens to the rustle of the wind, watches as it blows greater wavelets across the water.  It’s so calm, so lovely—pristine.

She walks into something, and hears a muttered curse as she stumbles back.

It’s Sandor Clegane, his face flushed and his eyes bloodshot.  

"What the fuck are you doing up?" he slurs at her and she realizes that he’s drunk.

"I was going for a walk," she stammers, looking away from him.  There’s something so awful about his expression.  Not the burns—though they are gruesome, but the sneer that twists at his lips and the glare in those startlingly grey eyes.

"Going for a walk?" he snorts, "Enjoying mother nature?  That sounds lovely.  Bet you didn’t expect to run into anyone, did you?  Have the grounds to yourself."  Sansa doesn’t say anything, but she crosses her arms and focuses on a spot just to the left of him.  "Won’t even look at me?  Won’t say anything?  Are you scared of me?"

"I am not," she lies, feeling her face go warm.  

"You are.  Brave little Gryffindor you are, scared of a drunk old dog like me."

"You should go back to your cabin and sleep it off," she says, surprised at how strong her voice sounds.  "It’s indecent.  If First Years see you."

"What’ll you do? Report me?"

Sansa straightens.  ”I might,” she says.  ”I am sure Professor Lannister would be interested to hear about this.” He opens his mouth to retort, but she presses on, doing her best not to sound too…too what?  ”But you shouldn’t do it because of that.  You should go and sleep it off.  Take care of yourself.”

She doesn’t expect him to be cowed—not at all—but there’s something odd about the way he says, “Fuck Professor Lannister,” something not quite as angry, something a little confused.  And she is almost amazed to see him turn around and stump back to his cabin, swaying slightly as he goes.

* * *

Hands cover his eyes from behind and Ned grins.

"Hello, Allyria," he says, not even twisting his head, because who else would it be?

"How did you know it was me?" she demands.

"No one else sneaks up behind me and covers my eyes like that," he shrugs.

"No one?" asks Allyria in mock astonishment.  She removes her hands and sits down next to him on the bench with her back to the Gryffindor table.

"Nope.  Just you.  What are you doing here, anyway?" he asks.

"Can’t an aunt come and find her dashing young nephew on a Saturday and spirit him away for a day of mayhem?"

"I don’t know—you’d have to ask Dondarrion," Ned says, jerking his head towards the staff table.  

"Dondarrion?" Allyria asks.  "Who’s that?"

"He’s the head of Gryffindor these days after Selmy retired."

"Which one is he?"

"The one with the eyepatch."

Allyra bends forward and looks around Ned up at the staff table.  ”My, he’s delicious, isn’t he?”

"If you like," Ned says.

"I do.  One moment."

"Allyr—" he begins, but she’s gone, strolling up to the staff table with a slight swing to her hips.  Ned watches her go, watches the way that Dondarrion’s eye goes wide and a blush creeps up his face, then grins and stuffs his copy of  _The Standard Book of Spells: Grade Seven_  into his bag.

* * *

Arya waits until everyone had left the common room before she scrambles out of her armchair and went to kneel by the fire.   She digs in her pocket for a moment, finding the pouch of floo powder and sprinkles it into the flame, then, without a moment of hesitation, says “The Smithy” and sticks her head in the fire and feels the familiar heat and twisty sensation as her head crosses through the fireplace.

She always waits until everyone’s asleep before she floos.  She’s not allowed to, technically.  It’s against Hogwarts Rules.  She doesn’t understand why, and thinks it’s stupid, but the one time she wasn’t careful, Sansa caught her and they’d gotten into a huge fight because Arya should be allowed to talk to her friends whenever she wants and damn the rules.  Sansa had docked points and gone off in a huff, and Arya had waited another hour before going and continuing her conversation with Gendry.  

He is sitting in the cramped living room of his apartment and he grins at her, closing the book he’s reading.

"Was wondering if you’d come in the end," he says, crouching down. 

“‘Course I would,” she says, smiling.  ”How was your game with the Harpies?”

He groans.  ”They’ve got a  _mean_  beater.  That Dacey Mormont—she’s  _mean_  I tell you.  She had four cobbing calls against her and  _still_  didn’t stop elbowing me when I got too close.”

"Serves you right, getting to close to Dacey Mormont," shrugs Arya.  "Her little sister’s in my class."

"I remember," Gendry says darkly.  "Is she on your team yet?"

"We have try-outs this weekend," Arya says.  "I don’t know if she’s trying out."

"Well—make sure she knows that cobbing is illegal for a reason.  I still have bruises."  His hair looks ruffled, and his he grimaces, rubbing his ribs almost unconsciously. _  
_

"I’ll try," Arya says dryly.  "We have a firstie in Broom Club this year."

Gendry raises his eyebrows, an interested expression crossing his face.  ”He any good?”

Arya narrows her eyes.  ” _She’_ s not bad.  And why do you assume she’s a boy?”

"I dunno—boys just like…" his voice trails, and he smiles at her, chagrinned.  "Sorry."

"It’s not  _me_  you have to apologize to.  I hope the Harpies throttle you this season.”

"They’ve already done it once, I don’t see why they wouldn’t again," he mutters.  "Point taken.  I promise."

"Good."  Arya glares at him and intends to make sure he means it.

* * *

It’s something he’ll never say to Jon, but there are days—well, nights—when Rickon wishes he weren’t in Slytherin.  Not that he doesn’t have friends, and not that he doesn’t like the environment of the house, but it’s eerie falling asleep in his dorm.  

The windows, interesting with their greenish brown light during the day, are just plain scary at night.  Not that he’s scared.  He’s not scared.  He’s never been scared of the dark.  He’s not a baby.  But it’s not…not normal to have the black be that pressing without any source of light, not even the pinprick of stars to be seen through gaps in the curtains.  There aren’t curtains.  They don’t need them.  There’s no sunlight to wake them up, just the slightly-less-dark of the lake by day.

Maybe it would be better if the dorm wasn’t below the lake.  Why couldn’t it have been a first floor dormitory?  Would that have been so hard?  Rickon misses the sky.

* * *

"Ms. Targaryen?"

Dany turns and sees a woman in a red cloak standing just outside the main office.  Her hair is red, her lips are redder than red, and her nails are red.

"May I help you?" Dany asks.  She wipes her hands on her trousers, knowing that won’t get all the dirt off them, but figuring they’ll be slightly cleaner when she offers her hand for the woman to shake.

"My name is Melisandre Asshai, and I’m here for your inspection."  

Daenerys cocks her head, confused.  ”Inspection?”

"The International Confederation of Wizards requires that this site be evaluated once every five years.  I represent the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures and the Department for the Improper Use of Magic, and intend to file a report by the end of the month on this site."

"Haven," Daenerys says, crossing her arms.  "It’s not a ‘site’ it’s a haven."  She glances sideways to see if Jorah and Grey were back from looking after the Chinese Fireball.  She’d gotten some scale rot and had been trampling around in a pained rage for three days now.

"Haven," Asshai corrects herself.  "Now, I’ll need unfettered access to your files, and I will need to accompany you in forays out into the si—haven."

Dany nods slowly, and steps aside so that Asshai can pass her.  ”If you’ll excuse me just a moment, I will be with you shortly.  Just running to the,” she waves her hands towards the very obvious bathroom, and Asshai nods, and sits down, her back to the main office.  Dany hurries into the bathroom and scribbles a note to leave on Jorah’s desk.   _Hide Missandei._   She washes her hands properly, and notices that her reflection looks paler than usual.

* * *

"Viserys took me out for lunch again today," Rhaenys says that night as they cook dinner together, her voice light and throaty and relaxed, and Arianne bites her tongue.

She bites it hard, and if she had sharper teeth she’d draw blood.  

Viserys Targaryen makes her skin crawl—the way he looks at Rhaenys, the way he talks to Dany, the way he ignores her.  He’s cocky, arrogant, selfish, harsh, and she’d had to put up with  _enough_  of him at Hogwarts when they’d been in the same house.  She still remembered the sound of his obnoxious laugh echoing off the walls of the common room, and it still set her teeth on edge.

"That was nice of him," Arianne says, keeping her voice as neutral as possible as she slices the peppers.  Rhaenys bumps her hip into Arianne’s.  

"You don’t have to be nice.  I know you don’t like him," Rhaenys says.

Arianne looks at her sideways, and sees the guarded expression on her cousin’s face, and she shrugs.  ”He’s fine,” she lies.

Rhaenys is like a daisy, Arianne thinks.  Springy and happy and too easily trod upon.  Sure—Arianne loathes Viserys with every fiber of her being, loathes him the way her uncle and father loathe his brother, but that loathing…she won’t show the full extent of that loathing to Rhaenys.  She won’t crush her cousin that way.

* * *

Ned comes home to find the house dark, and still.  He shrugs off his travelling cloak and deposits his brief case on the table by the stair case, flicks his wand and lights the candles in the hallway.

Cat isn’t home yet.  If she were home, he’d see her shoes kicked off and lying pell-mell by the door.  Some of the candles might have been lit, but probably she would have gone straight upstairs to lie down and read through proofs before he came home so she wouldn’t have to do it after dinner.

He toes off his own shoes and goes into the kitchen, waving his wand and setting some onions to chop themselves, summoning a pan and turning on the stove and setting it on a burner.  He drops a slice of butter in to melt then turns to the kitchen table to see if Wanderer had brought any letters from the kids.  He spies on in Bran’s neat lettering, and one in Rickon’s untidy scrawl, but nothing from the girls and he smiles, as he opens the first one.

He doesn’t hear Cat come in, but he feels her slide her arms around his waist.   “Good day?” she asks him, breathing into his shoulder and peering at the letters.

"Not bad," he scans the first paragraph.  "Bran’s asking us to send him his copy of  _Hogwarts: A History._ ”

"And here I was thinking we’d convinced him to leave it behind this time," sighs Cat.

"I’m fairly certain that’s because it wouldn’t fit in his trunk," Ned says.  He puts the letters down on the table and twists in her arms, resting his hands at her waist to kiss her.

* * *

_Dear Gendry,_

_1\. I hope your bruises are doing better.  If they’re not, my mum has this cream that she used to use whenever I banged my knees.  I think it was called Madame Marvel’s Bruise Removal Paste._

_2\. I am about to have quidditch practices again once we have a full team again, so I don’t know if Tuesday talks will work anymore.  It’ll depend a bit on team scheduling, but it looks like Ravenclaw’s aiming for Monday nights this year because their captain is also a prefect and that’s when his patrols were scheduled, so we might trade nights with them.  Does that make things hard on your end?  Let me know._

_3\.  Arithmancy is so hard but so cool but so hard and I am kind of scared of taking the OWL at the end of the year._

_4\. Hot Pie wants me to send you a cookie, so you will find it enclosed.  I had one from the same batch and it is very good.  You should prepare yourself accordingly._

_5\. Good luck against Wimbourne.  You’ll need it after your match with the Harpies.  I’ll try and listen if I’m not still working on Arithmancy._

_Arya_

_-_

_Dear Arya,_

_1\. Thank you.  I’ll look into it. (The bruise cream, if you can’t remember what the order of things on that list was.)_

_2\. I could maybe swing Thursdays, but I’ll probably be beat.  We’ll try.  (Isn’t your sister Head Girl?  Couldn’t you use some sway to get her to shift around the Ravenclaw Captain’s patrol schedule?)_

_3\. There’s a very good reason I did not take Arithmancy, and while you have my sympathy, please know that I’m also laughing a little bit that you keep calling **me**  the idiot for not having taken it._

_4\. Tell Hot Pie I died eating that cookie and will need more for resurrection purposes._

_5\. Oh please—like we need luck against Wimbourne._

_Gendry_

* * *

Catelyn looks up from her desk when she hears a knock on the door and sees Walda standing there, looking positively delighted with herself, holding a young woman by the arm.

"Catelyn," Walda chirps happily, dragging the woman into Cat’s office, "This is my sister Roslin."

"It’s lovely to meet you," Cat smiles at the girl, who looks positively terrified.  She can’t blame her.  She knows Walda well enough to know where this is going.  Walda is probably going to try and put her on the editorial staff, or even just have her observe for a week or two to get some experience.  She turns her attention back to Walda.  "Now if I may ask…" she lets her voice fade away in an unasked question that Walda snatches up instantly.

"Have you not heard of Roslin?" Walda asks, leering between the two of them.  Catelyn narrows her eyes.

"Should I have?"

Roslin blushes furiously and mutters, “Walda—don’t.  It’s—”

But Walda waves her hand and talks over her sister.  ”She’s your brother’s girlfriend.  I thought you two should meet.”  Cat feels her eyes go wide and her jaw open in surprise.  Edmure hadn’t ever mentioned a new girlfriend.  Edmure never mentions girlfriends, period.  It came from Dad always asking when he’d get married.  

Walda gets to her feet and says, “Well, I’ll leave you two to chat,” and bounces out of the room, laughing in a way that sounds all too much like a cackle.

* * *

_It’s not a shameful thing to ask for a desk job.  It’s not.  It’s not.  It’s not.  Just do it.  Grit your teeth and do it.  You’ll never have to go back to Egypt and if he comes here—if he comes—if he comes…_

It’s a mantra, one he wakes up with every day as he stares at the cracked ceiling in the room of Asha’s flat that he’s been staying in since he got back.

_If you get a desk job, you can propose living with Robb.  You can go to the Starks’ for Sunday dinners like you did when you were a kid, and if he comes—if he comes—if he comes…_

The Starks had always loved having him around for Sunday dinners.  Him and Sansa’s little friend Jeyne Poole who lived just on the other side of the copse near their house—they’d always been welcome.  Jeyne and Arya had fought like cats and dogs, and he’d always had to sit between them, but he didn’t care because it was nice to have a Sunday dinner every now and then with a family that wasn’t sniping at each other about everything in the world.

_Come on.  Grit your teeth and do it, Greyjoy.  No one’ll think the less of you.  Say you want to settle down—start a family, go to some quidditch matches—whatever you like.  It’s your life, you can do with it what you will.  Come on.  Do it.  Do it today, and get it over with._

Who would he start a family with though?  Kyra, and Ella, and the other girls he’d had fun with in school?  They probably thought he was good for a laugh still, and Theon had never felt less like smiling and laughing in his life.  He liked the idea of settling down with little Jeyne Poole more than that, because she, at least, would have changed too.

 _She’s seventeen_ , he thought.   _It’s not weird to think that.  Not anymore.  But think about it later.  You can do this.  Go in and request a desk job.  You can do it.  You can._

* * *

He’s watching her fly fly fly through the air, soaring like a bird of prey in her red robes, her hair tied back in a pony tail that streams behind her like a tail.  There’s nothing in the world like watching Arya fly.  I will conquer the world, she seems to say with every muscle of her body, I will be remembered.  

He’s heard people call them both naturals on a broom, and he can’t see himself fly, but he sees the way that Arya flies and if he flies the way she flies then he has to be a natural too because Arya in the air is Arya how she should be.

There she goes, firing the quaffle at the golden goal hoops, looping in celebration, making it look easy, as if it’s not somehow, and she swerves and dives and swings her way through the air and suddenly she’s not suddenly she’s falling suddenly she’s screaming and flailing and scrabbling like he did when he fell he can tell because she’s turned into him she’s her hair’s grown shorter and her robes have turned blue and she’s not Arya anymore not Arya the natural on a broom but Bran the falling falling falling until he wakes up again.

* * *

She’s sitting in Defense Against the Dark Arts when there’s a knock on the door, and Obella Sand pokes her head around the door and says that her cousin is asking for her and might she be excused.  Sansa begins packing her bag, waves goodbye to Jeyne and makes her way to the hospital wing.

She knows that’s where Robert is.  That’s always where Robert is.  Why he hasn’t been moved to Saint Mungo’s yet is anyone’s guess, given that he’s now spent more time in the hospital wing than in actual classes.  She should write to Aunt Lysa, of course, but she doubts anything would come of that.  Somehow, her letters to Aunt Lysa always go unanswered.

He looks very small, lying in bed with crisp white sheets.  ”I had the shakes again today,” he says sadly before she even has time to ask him how he’s feeling.  She sits down and he reaches out and seizes her hand.  It’s clammy and she squeezes it once before letting go—sooner, she knows than Robert would like, but she hates it when his hands are clammy.

"In which class?" she asks.

"Charms."

Sansa purses her lips, and he smiles.  ”You look like Mum when you do that,” he sighs happily, settling down against his pillows again.  ”I asked them to write to Mum.  She should come today.”

 _And she’ll want me away from you_ , Sansa thinks.  She’s never understood, but Aunt Lysa wants her as far away from her son as possible.

* * *

Hogsmeade is very quiet.  Louder than home, but quiet all the same.  And Gilly likes it well enough.  She likes that there are a few more people around—but not too many.  Her mother—her mother had told her she’d be best off trying to get to London, but she tried that, she did, and it was so loud and everything was everywhere and people were everywhere and she’d been scared of the grates breaking underfoot.

So she’d made her way north.  She likes the north.  She likes the trees, and the quiet, and the crisp air that means that summer has come to an end.  She likes that there are some—but not too many—people around, too, who smile at her and don’t say anything too rowdy.  The Three Broomsticks is much nicer than the other pub.  She never goes near the other pub.

The only time she doesn’t like the quiet is when he cries and she can’t hush him up, even if she gives him her breast, even if she cradles him in her arms.  The only time she doesn’t like the quiet is when she’s sure the whole village will hear her son and wonder where he came from.

* * *

Rhaella likes it best when the memories of Memorial Day fade, and she can breathe again.

Every year, in the days leading up to the holiday, she closets herself away, puts on records of old music that had always soothed Rhaegar to sleep when he was young, and does her best not to remember the proverbial witch hunt that had happened after Jaime Lannister had killed her brother.

She calls him her brother.  It is easier than calling him husband.  It sends a better message, she thinks.  She hates that she has to send the message at all.

They’d hated her, they’d been chomping at the bit to send her and her children to Azkaban—even Daenerys who had barely been born.  Bad enough that Aerys was dead—his blood wasn’t enough.  They had hated her for him, though she’d…she’d…

She always turns the music up louder when she sinks into thoughts like that.  It had soothed Rhaegar when he’d been a baby, and it soothes her now, the familiar lilt of a violin and the scratching of old vinyl on the turntable.  

It wouldn’t be long now.  Not long at all.  And when enough days had passed and there was enough distance between the morning and the Mourning, she would leave the house again, and the loathing she’d face would be manageable, usual, normal.  

* * *

When Cersei Lannister was thirteen years old, she had a friend named Melara Heatherspoon.  She and Melara were close—as close as Cersei could be to anyone who wasn’t Jaime.  Melara had fancied herself in love with Jaime.  Cersei scoffed at that.

Cersei thinks about Melara sometimes.  She thinks about her most whenever father goes on about family legacy.  ”Jaime,” he always says, “Jaime is good for family legacy.”  Jaime’s the only Gryffindor in the family, but Father doesn’t care about that.  Father’s only complaint is that Jaime’s not married yet.  Jaime has no little Lannisters running around with gold hair and green eyes—at least, no little Lannisters that are Lannisters anyway.  Cersei, though—Cersei is hardly consequential.  Her children bear the name Baratheon, even if they bear no Baratheon blood.

She remembers it as clearly as if it happened just yesterday.  She had been thirteen years old, and she and Melara used to sit together in their Divination classes and make fun of how wrinkly Professor Frog was.  She was so very wrinkly—“She looks more like a toad than a frog,” Melara always said.  And on the day that it was their turn to help Professor Frog clean the teacups after reading tea leaves for an hour, they heard her voice grow dark, more croaky than usual.

They had turned around and saw her standing there with wide eyes—wide eyes on Melara.

 _“Your death is here today, little one. Can you smell her breath? She is very close,”_ The teacher had said.  Melara had gasped in horror and stumbled back, breaking half the teacups on the shelf.

Professor Frog had turned to Cersei, and Cersei had felt her blood run cold because she’d never noticed just how yellow the woman’s eyes were.

“ _You will lose everything.  Another, younger and more beautiful, to cast you down and take all that you hold dear_.  _Three golden children you shall bear, three for you and sixteen for your husband.  Gold shall be their crowns_ _and gold their shrouds_ ,  _and when your tears have drowned you, the brother_ _shall wrap his hands about your pale white throat and choke the life from you.”_

She and Melara had fled the tower classroom.  Melara had tripped on the spiral staircase and fallen down three floors, her neck snapping somewhere along the way.

Cersei thinks of Melara sometimes, whenever Father is asking Jaime if he’s found someone suitable to marry yet, whenever Father goes on about family legacy, and she wonders what would have happened if she had not scoffed at Melara’s little crush.

She never thinks of it very long though.  Never very long.

* * *

Jon had never been close to Gendry—not really.  They’d lived in the same dorm for seven years, but he’d hardly really known him.  Arya says that Gendry’s hard to know, that Gendry’s slow to let people in.  But Arya had fallen in with him quick enough.  Three bouts of their little Broom Club and they’d been thick as thieves, despite the fact that he was so much older than her.  Arya wrote Gendry as frequently as she wrote Jon, and they’d only overlapped at school for two years.

Jon sometimes listens to Gendry’s games.  Not because he’s a Wigtown fan, but because sometimes the games are on when he’s working the night shift—whichever game.  Gendry’s good, but then, Gendry’s always been good.  He’d captained Slytherin for two years before they’d left.

Everyone had assumed they were close because they were the only half-bloods in Slytherin for the longest time.  (And no one was sure if Gendry was even a half blood.  He didn’t know who his father was.  But everyone just sort of assumed…the Sorting Hat had only been convinced to defy Slytherin’s decree of purebloods only in Jon’s fourth year.)  But he’d always spent a fair amount of time out of the dormitory anyway because of his friends outside the house, and Gendry was always sullen with him, though, to be fair, he got a little warmer after Arya got to school.  He’d even half-smiled at Jon a few times, which for Gendry was a big thing.  But they’d never been close.  And, honestly, Gendry matters more to Jon because he matters that much to Arya than because of seven years in Slytherin.  

* * *

Catelyn knows Ned’s asleep when he twists away from her, pulling the blankets off her and kicks them down to the bottom of the bed.  If she falls asleep first, which she usually doesn’t, he might twist away from her when he’s still awake, leaving the blankets in tact.  But if she’s not careful to grab them as he rolls onto his back, she’ll be startled awake by the cold.

Tonight, she is startled awake by the cold and she mutters to herself as she reaches down and tugs the blankets back up and cocoons herself in them.  She hadn’t been that close to sleep anyway, but it’s frustrating nonetheless, because now she’s too awake and when she’s too awake, she can’t help but think about work, or the fact that Edmure still hasn’t replied to her note saying she’d met Roslin, or the fact that she hasn’t heard anything from Arya in too long, beyond the odd mention from Bran or Sansa.

She doesn’t want to think about those things now.  Thinking about those things now means she’ll be up for hours, turning them over in her mind until she’s thoroughly agitated and dawn creeps through the window.  So instead, she focuses on her husband’s snores, and the stars that glitter through their bedroom window.

* * *

Robert had asked her to come by after his mother left that evening, and Sansa had forgotten until she’s just about to go to bed.  She’s already in her pajamas and she winces, because she knows he’ll be upset if she doesn’t show up.

She glances at the clock.  It’s late.  It’s not so late that he’d be asleep though.  He has trouble sleeping at night.  She doesn’t know why.  No one knows why.  No one really understands what’s wrong with her cousin.  She  _should_  go.  She knows she should.  So she sighs, and hoists herself out of bed, finds a bathrobe and makes her way to the common room and out the portrait hole.

"What’s this?  Surely it’s not our Head Girl parading through the school in her pajamas."  She flinches, halfway out of the entryway finding Ned Dayne, a bag on his shoulders and a grin on his face.  

"I’m—I’m not parading."  She’s not.  And besides, there’s no rule against going around the school in pajamas.  She knows because Arya did it once and had made her look it up when she’d tried to make her go and change, and there wasn’t anything written down.  How silly she’d felt then.  She felt almost as silly now, trying to justify it to Ned.

"Looks rather like parading to me," Ned says, shrugging.  "Where are you off to anyway.  Hot date?"  He winks at her and she feels a blush rising in her cheeks.  She hates blushing—hates it.  Joff said that her blush had always clashed with her hair.  "A blush!" Ned exclaims excitedly.  "What’s his name?"

"I’m not dating anyone," Sansa hisses at him, and she closes the portrait because she’s sure that people are watching, and she doesn’t want them to.

The smile on Ned’s face fades slightly and he shrugs.  ”Where’re you off to, then?”

"My cousin’s in the hospital wing," she says, not even bothering to keep the annoyance out of her voice.  "I’m going to visit him."

"He all right?" Ned asks, and any semblance of a smile is gone.  He looks very serious, and she’d never noticed just how oddly-colored his eyes were—not quite blue, but not quite purple either.

"He’s…he’s got a condition," Sansa says quietly, crossing her arms over her chest, suddenly cold, and…and…she doesn’t want him to get the wrong idea.  She feels a flush rising in her face again.  And is suddenly warm.  Is she ill?

Ned nods, the serious expression still on his face.  ”Well…I hope he feels better.  Are—are you all right?”

She stares at him.  ”Why wouldn’t I be?” she asks, blankly.

He doesn’t reply, but she sees something shift in his eyes—they really are quite lovely eyes.  They are so soft, and kind in a way she’s not used to seeing in him.

"I dunno," he says, sounding like he knows exactly why, but if she’s not going to bring it up, he’s not either.  "Well…I won’t keep you.  Ours is the Fury," he says to the Fat Lady, who swings open.  He waves to her then disappears back into the common room, and it takes Sansa a moment to remember where she is, and where she’s going.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Daenerys, Missandei, Asha, Tris, Theon, Beric, Tommen, Howland, Meera, Jojen, Jyana, Grenn, Pyp, Jon, Jaime, Ned, Renly, Stannis, Garlan, Willas, Roose, Ramsay, Edric, Sansa, Catelyn, Petyr, Edmure, Roslin, Myrcella, Shireen, Bran, Tyrion, Arya, Rickon, Sandor, Lysa, Podrick

Dany waits until Asshai has gone back to the cabin that they cleared of excess netting and scales before she hurries to her own, locks the door firmly behind her, then lifts the trap door at the foot of her bed and drops to the ground beneath the raised cabin, pulling herself on her elbows until she’s cleared the back of the cabin.  She gets to her feet and hurries back to the main building, skirts it, and knocks on a window that faces the back.

Grey Worm’s face appears, surly, his lips curled in a frown.

"Everything all right?" Dany hisses.  

Grey nods and Missandei appears at his shoulder, her eyes wide.

"We have to get you out of here," Dany breathes, but Missandei shakes her head.

"No," she whispers.  "This one would stay.  This one hasn’t anywhere else to go."

"I  _can’t_  get caught with an illegal intern here,” Dany says.  ”It’ll be trouble—for both of us.”

"This one has no where else to go," Missandei repeats, and Grey places a hand on her shoulder.  

Dany grimaces.  She’d thought the girl might say that.  ”Well, we’ll have to hide you until Asshai goes, then,” she says.  Missandei nods eagerly, visibly relaxing.  Dany’s glad one of them can.

* * *

"Hullo, Asha!" Tris says eagerly the moment that Asha reaches her desk.  She ignores him, waving her wand vaguely and sending her coffee mug over to the coffee machine in the corner.  She picks up a memo from the top of the pile of about thirty on her desk.

"Oh Merlin," she mutters, holding out her hand.  The wayward coffee mug returns.  

"What is it?" Tris asks.

"Baratheon sent me thirty memos overnight.  I swear the man has no life."

"What were you up to?" Tris asks hopefully, "I was thinking of asking you to dinner last night, but I figure’d you’d be busy, but I thought it might be nice to get a meal sometime, you know…as—"

"You know Qarl Maid in Accidents and Catastrophes?" Asha interrupts loudly.  Tris’ face falls.  Asha’s never been one to let people down gently, and Tris is almost too nice.  He certainly thinks she’s nicer than she thinks she is.  So she doesn’t even care that he looks suddenly like he’d not gotten out of bed that morning.  "Had him over to mine last night.  I swear he’s hung like a horse."

* * *

He can’t sleep.

He can’t sleep—not because Asha’s having sex very loudly in the next room—he’s slept through louder, and been louder in his time so it’s poor form to complain about that—but because when he closes his eyes every night the still air of the guest room in Asha’s flat seems to compress around him, and in the darkness, his own breath doesn’t sound like his own.  

He doesn’t know what his own breath sounds like anymore.  He’s used to gasping, hyperventilating, in the first few moments after Ramsay shuts him in for the night, before he remembers that he needs to try to keep his lungs inflated because if he doesn’t keep them inflated he’ll run out of air, but he can’t stop exhaling—can’t hold his breath and preserve oxygen because he can’t just hold his breath forever.

He gasps and moans and it doesn’t sound like Asha’s gasps and moans at all.  It sounds like  _Reek_ 's, and Reek doesn't get to sleep.

* * *

"I don’t think I’ve ever seen you moon before," Thoros says, taking another swig of firewhiskey.  Beric glares at him.  Beric only has the one night off a week, and usually during that one night off,  _someone_ manages to set fire to a tapestry or something and he has to head back up to the school.  Usually Thoros is worth a laugh, but now he’s looking at him the way that Beric sometimes looks at Poole when she’s not paying attention in class.

"I’m not mooning," he mumbles, sounding too much like Poole when he’s caught her not paying attention in class.

"You are.  Have been each night this week.  So—when are you seeing her again?"

"Can’t," Beric mutters.  "She’s one of my students’ guardians."

"So?"

"So?  It’s a conflict of interest.  Can’t…can’t do anything til he’s left school, can I?"

Luckily Ned Dayne was a seventh year.  He’d be gone plenty soon.  And his aunt…surely Beric could wait a few more months before he tried to see her again.

* * *

"And what is commonly considered to be the tipping point in the war against King Aerys?" Professor Reed asks the class, his green eyes sweeping around the room.  

No one says anything, no one moves, no one’s hand shoots up eager to answer the question.  They’ve learned by now that Professor Reed likes asking trick questions.  ”Misdirection,” he says whenever they answer a question wrong, “comes in all forms.  Too often a question will solicit an answer, but that doesn’t mean that that answer is the  _correct_  one.”  Tommen had complained about it once to Myrcella, and she’d just laughed and said that that was just how Professor Reed was.  Tommen and his classmates spent a good amount of time muttering about Ravenclaws after that.

 _He wants us to say Uncle Jaime_ , Tommen thinks.   _He wants us to say that it was when Uncle Jaime turned on him.  Because that’s the obvious answer.  So that’s not it._ He screws up his face.  Was it always this hard?  Was this how Myrcella felt all the time?  Or did it come easy to her, thinking like this?

What was it that grandfather had always says?  Keep your friends close and your enemies close?  But King Aerys hadn’t done that—he hadn’t kept his friends close, hadn’t kept his family close.  If he had, he wouldn’t have…

Tommen raises a hand, and Professor Reed nods at him.  ”When he sacked Tywin Lannister and sent…Professor Targaryen to be headmistress of Hogwarts?” He’d meant to sound confident in his answer, but it came out as a question.

"Ten points to Gryffindor," says Professor Reed, smiling, and Tommen feels his heart swell with pride.  "Now, Rhaella Targaryen…" And Tommen began scribbling away on his piece of parchment, looking down to hide his grin.

* * *

Meera looks up and sees Jojen and her father materializing in the fireplace, wiping soot and ash off their robes.  Jojen immediately loosens his tie—he hasn’t even changed out of his Hogwarts robes—and throws it over the back of one of the straight-backed kitchen chairs.

"You’re late," Meera hisses at them, and they both look chagrinned.  

"Sorry," Jojen whispers back.  "I got into a debate about prophetic dreams with a third year."  

"Is she home yet?" Father asks, crossing to a cabinet and pulling out boxes of tea leaves.

"She’ll be home in five minutes," Meera replies, checking her watch.  "Three minutes," she corrects herself, ignoring the flutter of excitement in her stomach.

"You got the cake, then?" Jojen asks, and Meera waves her wand.  The cake emerges from the refrigerator, candles poking out of it from odd angles, and it lands on the kitchen table.  Father waves his wand, and they ignite, then he sits down next to Jojen while Meera summons plates and forks.

A moment later, they hear the sound of the front door clicking closed and the tired footsteps of someone who has just finished working a ten hour shift on her birthday.  

It takes Jyana Reed a full four seconds to understand why her husband and son are back from Hogwarts.  She has to take into account the cake on the table, and the out-of-tune singing of “Happy Birthday” before she leans against the door frame of the kitchen and smiles tremulously because it had been the worst birthday in the world before now.

* * *

"Well, look at you in your big cubicle," Pyp says, perching over the top of it and Jon rolls his eyes.

"It’s not  _that_  big,” he mutters, blushing a bit.

"Bigger than ours though, isn’t it?  Or should we call you ‘Commander’ now," says Grenn.  He steps inside it and waves his arms around, as if to demonstrate how much more room there is than in Jon’s old cubicle.

"Commander has a nice ring to it," Pyp agrees.

"Shut up," Jon mutters.  "I didn’t ask for this promotion."

"Got it anyway, didn’t you though."

Jon rolls his eyes.  ”Look, Mormont retired.  Of course they were going to bump people up.  I just got bumped up is all.”

"And a bigger cubicle," Grenn says.  "Merlin, you could take a nap in this thing, couldn’t you?"

"Why would I take a nap at work?" Jon asks, reaching for his coffee.  

"Why  _wouldn’t_  you take a nap at work, more like,” teases Pyp.

"And you all are wondering why I got promoted and you didn’t," Jon sighs and he turns back to his paperwork.  "Now, if you’ll excuse me.  I have things to do."

"Right-o, Commander," says Pip.  He grabs Grenn by the ear and drags him off, yelping.

* * *

"This post is prestigious, Jaime.  It will be good for you," Cersei had said with wide green eyes before dropping her voice.  "Good for  _us._ "  And he could see why she thinks that.  

He’s a hero—everyone says so.  A true Gryffindor—brave, courageous even, for turning on his master and sending him to his grave.  It had hardly mattered that Robert had led the Rebellion, Jaime had struck the fatal blow, and everyone loves him for that.  

So of course it makes sense that his father would put him in charge of the auror office, that Cersei would think the job good for him, good for  _them,_  because it shows he’s still fighting while Robert just got fat.  But flicking through the old  _Witch Weekly_  article about him, all he can think is that he doesn’t look happy, doesn’t look fulfilled, or proud.

They love him for the wrong reasons, he thinks.  They think he was brave—killing Aerys the way he did to protect Hogwarts.  They think it was honorable, and good, but where was that honor and goodness while he watched Brandon Stark burn?  Where was it when he stood at Aerys’ side and watched him rip the world to shreds.  They don’t think about that time at all—they just call him hero and savior.  But it’s the screams that Jaime can’t get out of his head.

* * *

Jon smiles so rarely these days that Ned sometimes forgets what it looks like when he does.  But as they clink their butterbeer mugs, and dig into their dinner after work, the “can’t a man take his son out to dinner after he gets a promotion” dinner he’d told Cat about guiltily that morning when she’d asked him if he wanted shepherd’s pie for dinner, he remembers what it feels like to have his stomach drop out of his body because it’s like looking at Rhaegar Targaryen’s smile on his own face.

He wishes that Jon had Lyanna’s smile.  He wishes it so very much.  Arya has it, and it is such a beautiful smile and it makes Arya’s face light up.  But Jon’s is always a half-smile, the almost-scared-to-smile that Rhaegar Targaryen had always been famous for.

He never tells Jon that that’s the part of him that comes from his father.  He knows that Jon knows it’s not a Stark smile, but Jon has the good sense to infer that it came from the unknown mother, and only ever hint that he wants to know more.

Someday, he’ll tell him the truth.  Someday, when it’s safe, and when he doesn’t think the truth will crush him.  Someday, when Rhaegar Targaryen’s dead like Lyanna, and there’s no harm—no harm except Jon’s anger, but he can handle Jon’s anger.  He’s survived years of wishing the world would hate him for his lie.  He’d welcome Jon’s justifiable outrage.

"Something wrong, Dad?" Jon asks, and Ned hitches his own smile—his Stark smile, the smile he gave to Robb and Bran and Rickon—on to his face.

"Regurgitating toilets," he lies.  "Still haven’t caught the culprit."

Jon laughs.  ”Grenn came back today covered in shit.  I don’t think I’ve laughed that hard in ages.”  

Ned nods and takes another sip of his butterbeer.

One day—he’ll tell Jon one day.

* * *

"I can think of little in this world I like less than the idea of Joffrey helping run anything," Renly mutters under his breath.  He knows Stannis can hear.  Stannis has the ears of an owl (Renly’s never understood the whole "eyes of an owl" cliche as if it’s the only thing owls are good for.  Owls have amazing ears too) and he sees his older brother gnashing his teeth in agreement.

But they play polite and smile when Tywin Lannister claps Joffrey on the shoulder, and tells him he’s going to make his father proud, and that if he plays his cards right, he might just end up minister of magic one day.  They sit there, not being overtly rude at least, waiting for the food to be brought out.

"As if anyone  _wants_  that bloody job,” Robert says.  Renly doesn’t doubt he intended to say it under his breath, the way that Renly had, but Robert’s too drunk for that.  Robert’s always drunk.  Drunk and hitting on girls half his age who help him forget that he hates his wife.  Renly doesn’t know whether it’s pathetic or disgusting.  Probably some combination of both.

He does, at least, commend the fact that Robert doesn’t quake under Tywin Lannister’s glare.  Tywin Lannister, who is now one of the longest-serving Ministers of Magic, who has gotten Robert’s eldest son a very good job, and who probably only hasn’t killed Robert yet because Robert is a national hero.

"More balls than brains," Renly mutters to Stannis, jerking his head at Robert.

"You say that as if it’s new," Stannis replies dryly, and Renly’s lips quirk up in a smile.  He looks hopefully at his brother.  Stannis doesn’t smile.  Stannis only clears his throat and turns his attention back to Joffrey.

* * *

He knows Robb doesn’t mean it.  He knows it.  Robb has always liked him.  He’s always felt confident in that.  Maybe not as much as Robb likes Jon Snow, but then again, Jon Snow’s his brother, so it makes sense that Robb would like him in a different way than he likes Theon.

And it’s one of the nice things—one of the really fucking nice things, actually—about being back and not worrying about when he’ll head back to Egypt.  He and Robb have time together, after banking hours, after Robb comes out of the Ministry looking exhausted and overworked, and because Jon so often works later than both of them, he doesn’t have to worry about Jon tagging along and making him feel left out when they go to some pub and throw back firewhisky and talk about girls.

They talk about girls a lot.  It’s something they’ve always been able to do, talk about girls.  He and Robb have similar tastes.  (Jon’s always had the weird taste.  They don’t talk about girls when Jon’s around.)  And sometimes they sit at their table and look at the young witches who are laughing after work with  _their_  friends, and it’s easy to forget the bad and focus on the good because this—this is how it should be.  Drinks after work with Robb and girls to look at.  He doesn’t feel cold at all when the door opens, doesn’t feel fear that  _he_  might be coming through.  Besides, even if he were coming through, Robb would be there with him, and Robb’s always been quick with his wand.

Sometimes the girls smile at Robb.  They don’t usually smile at him.  He wonders why not and hopes it’s not all too…obvious.  He does his best to smile at them though, a half smile that hides his chipped tooth.

* * *

Garlan comes through the fireplace ten minutes earlier than he had planned to.  He doesn’t feel too bad about that, though.  Willas is always early when they have plans, and then rags on him for taking his time.  He wouldn’t be surprised if Willas is sitting in the kitchen already, staring at his pocketwatch and wondering if Garlan will be late.

So it comes a bit as a surprise to find Willas in the kitchen completely naked, with two other people, who are also completely naked.  

A bit of a surprise is an understatement, actually.

A bit of a surprise is what happens when grandmother gets drunk and starts telling father that she’s actually very proud of him.  A bit of a surprise is Margaery not being picked to be Head Girl. A bit of a surprise is Leonette deciding to try straightening her hair because it’s in these days.

A huge fucking shock is Willas sitting naked in his kitchen with two other people who are also completely naked.

Garlan doesn’t say anything.  He doesn’t know what is appropriate to say.  Especially given that Willas is completely naked and…

"You’re early," Willas says dryly, crossing his good leg over his bad and hiding his—

"Yeah—didn’t have much on my plate today," Garlan says, his voice breathy.  Willas’ kitchen is small.  Willas’ kitchen is very small, and there are two naked strangers in it, both of whom seem to have gotten over their shock that Willas’ brother has popped out of the fireplace and are chuckling to themselves and reaching for bathrobes.

"Garlan," Willas says lightly, gesturing to them.  "Oberyn and Ellaria.  Oberyn and Ellaria," he gestures to Garlan, "Garlan.  My middle brother."

"Charmed," smiles Oberyn.

Garlan can’t smile.  Garlan can’t do anything except stand there, and Ellaria laughs and brushes past him, calling over her shoulder, “It’s time we were heading out.  The girls are always annoyed when we’re late to brunch.”

"Thursday?" Willas asks Oberyn.

"I’ll bring the coconut oil," Oberyn says, winking, and he follows Ellaria out, leaving Willas, still completely naked, and Garlan, still completely shocked, in the tiny kitchen.

* * *

_Dear Father,_

It’s not Domeric’s handwriting, and Roose’s blood runs cold, because Ramsay only calls him father when Domeric can’t hear, won’t find out.

_Dear Father,_

_I hate to be the one to tell you this, but Domeric’s missing.  We haven’t seen him since he Wednesday night of last week.  He was drunk, and making noises about trying to climb one of the pyramids.  We didn’t find him though—only some blood._

_Damon thinks that he might have tried apparating and splinched himself, but I’m dubious about that._

_We’ll keep looking, but I wanted to let you know, unless we find the worst._

_Ramsay_

Roose doesn’t reread the letter.  He doesn’t have to.  He already knows that Ramsay’s probably killed him.

* * *

He’d first noticed it at prefects’ meetings—that Sansa had taken to watching him.

Not watching him the way that a dog watches you—hoping you’ll pay attention, and maybe throw a ball or something.  Much more the way a cat watches—knowing where you are at all time, and not necessarily acknowledging that it’s watching you—but definitely watching you.  He thought he was making it up at the time.

It escalates in Charms, when they’re sitting next to each other and sometimes she reaches a hand out to force his chair back fully on the ground, or she’ll nudge him if he’s too obviously not paying attention and needs to be scribbling down notes, or nodding or something.  (He wonders if she knows that he’s barely paying attention because he’s watching the way her hands hold a quill.  They barely seem to exert any pressure on the pen at all, and he doesn’t even hear scratching as she writes.  He finds it hard to look away.  He wonders if that makes him more like a dog in his staring, if he runs with the “Sansa watches him like a cat” metaphor.)

Part of him wonders if she’s aware of it.  It’s not like he’s ever been  _close_  to Sansa.  She’d always had her prat boyfriend Joffrey, and her Slytherin friend Jeyne, and hadn’t spent much time with their year.  Maybe that’s just how she’s friends with people, watching them closely and making sure they’re taken care of.

Another part of him wonders if he’s making it up, as they walk from the dungeons to Transfiguration.  She hardly seems to notice him then—hardly seems to watch him.  But maybe it’s because they’re moving.  And sometimes it’s hard to keep an eye on someone who’s moving.  He  _certainly_  doesn’t think he’s making it up after prefects’ meetings anymore, that’s for bloody sure.  They’ve been climbing up to the Gryffindor tower for years now—they’re used to it.  And yet now, somehow when they reach the Fat Lady, both of them are a little breathless, both of them are a little blushing.

* * *

He hadn’t wanted to do it.  Well, he had, but that’s hardly the point.  He hadn’t  _meant_  to do it—not just yet.

But Reek had gone, and “Reek” had gone on leave, and what else was he supposed to have done?  It’s not like he and Domeric ever were close.  Well, Domeric had thought they were.  Domeric had liked having a brother.  But it had been Domeric who had first taught him about the mummification charm, so really Domeric shouldn’t have been surprised that he wanted to test it out, especially after “Reek” had scarpered back to London with his fucking tail between his fucking legs.

Should have cut that tail off before he’d gone.

He’d never seen a man suffocate before.  He’s seen men die, of course.  He’s not lily-livered.  He’s killed men too—but he’s never suffocated them.  Domeric and Father had always talked about slicing skin away, peeling it off with flaying curses.  But he had known that if Domeric was to die, then Domeric  _shouldn’t_  die the way he’d kill.  He’d get too much of a kick out of that.  He’d be pleased with it.  And Ramsay had been finished pleasing Domeric.

So he mummified him and stuck him in a sarcophagus and maybe one day some idiot would find him and think they’d found a different Pharaoh—a different Ramses.

It makes Ramsay chuckle.  

Their names’ll be really similar then—apart from the surnames.  Ramses Bolton and Ramsay Snow.

* * *

Theon still hasn’t moved out, and Asha doesn’t know what to do.

Part of her is worried—the part of her that sees how haggard he is when he comes out of his— _her guest room_  for work in the morning.  Another part of her is angry—angry because he stays out late drinking with Robb Stark, and when he stays out late drinking with Robb Stark, he comes back to  _her_  apartment completely disorderly and half the time ends up missing the toilet when he goes to piss.

She knows she shouldn’t get mad at him.  She knows that he had…trouble in Egypt.  But she also knows that he’s not taking care of himself, and that he’s not listening to her, and that he’s pretending everything’s all right.

Everything’s  _not_  all right.  She can see that much.  But he doesn’t let her try and fix that, and what’s she supposed to do?

* * *

Dany’s heart stops when she sees Missandei sitting in the middle of the main room, smiling and drinking tea with Asshai.

"Hello, Dany," she says, waving and smiling.  Her eyes widen slightly, as if to say  _don’t worry_ , or maybe  _I’ve got this_ , or perhaps even,  _help!_

"Hello, Missandei," Dany says slowly.  She deposits her broomstick on the broomrack and crosses over to the table that Missandei and Asshai are sitting at.

"I was just telling Miss Melisandre about the time that my brother fell down and tore a muscle right down his leg," Missandei says.

 _Grey Worm_ , Dany thinks quickly.  She’d seen the scar once—a huge ripling thing that crossed his quadriceps like a knotted rope.

"It is lucky that he can still walk," says Asshai carefully.

"He is," Dany agrees.  "Missandei, a word?"  She jerks her head towards her office, and the girl follows her.  Dany closes the door.

"I’m visiting my brother," Missandei hisses quickly.

"Yeah, well, be sure not to distract the Ministry official.  She has a lot to get done," Dany says more loudly, and Missandei grins.

* * *

"Do I even want to know?"  Garlan asks without preamble.

Willas snorts. “I’m surprised you waited this long to ask.”  It had been funny, watching Garlan grapple with it.  He’d refused to ask anything about it once Willas had put his clothes back on, and it had been days, now, since he’d come over early and found the three of them.  Good thing he hadn’t been twenty minutes early, or he would have found Oberyn up his ass.  The thought almost makes Willas smirk.  

"Technically I haven’t asked anything," Garlan mutters.

"Technically, you asked if you wanted to know, which I have now said that I’m surprised you waited this long to ask.  I would have been asking it much sooner.  But that’s just me," shrugs Willas.  He sees Garlan’s face grow stony, and he laughs.  "Do you, Garlan?  Do you want to know?"

Garlan doesn’t reply, but his glower deepens, and Willas is altogether too tempted to ruffle his brother’s hair and make fun of him and the undoubtedly very vanilla sex he’s having with his wife.

* * *

Her husband is late.  Perfect Ned, with his perfect straight back and his perfect smile, and isn’t it perfect, Petyr, we just seem to fit together, as if we were made for each other Ned is late to dinner, and Catelyn is pursing her lips.  And it’s perfect, because Ned isn’t perfect, but Petyr’s here, on time and polite and happy to see her anyway, despite the abominably rude, abominably late husband.

"He said he would leave work right at six," she sighs, glancing at the clock.  Not the one with the arrows with the names of herself and her children—her children and Ned’s bastard, pointing to places like "home" and "school" and "work" and "the bank" and "traveling" in a way that made Petyr’s teeth grind.  Ned’s hand is pointing firmly at "work" and Catelyn glances at the stew pot on the stove and says, "If you’re hungry, I suppose we could start.  Ned won’t mind."

"That would be lovely."  Of course Ned wouldn’t mind.  Not Ned—honorable Ned, tall and handsome Ned, sorry I was late I do hope you started without me Ned.  Yes, Ned, we will start without you.  We may finish without you too.

* * *

"I don’t think she liked me," Roslin murmurs.  They’re curled up on the couch, listening to an audioplay of  _Sir Cadogan’s Last Stand_ , Edmure’s arm is draped over her shoulder and she feels him turn underneath her.

"Of course she liked you," he says bracingly.  "Believe me, if Cat didn’t like you, you’d know."

"Would I?" Roslin finds that hard to believe.  She knows all sorts of "not liking," seen every kind in the book.  Everyone had to have a different way of doing it in her family.  Otherwise it would get boring.  And Catelyn Stark struck her as the sort who might bite her tongue if she didn’t like her little borther’s girlfriend.

"Yeah," Edmure says, and he’s smiling at her—a little patronizingly if truth be told.  "Cat always tells me if I’m doing something stupid, or if she doesn’t like something.  She speaks her mind."

But Roslin knows he’s wrong.  Roslin  _knows_  it.  Catelyn might tell him when he was doing something wrong, but not that she didn’t like his girlfriend.  And Catelyn might speak her mind to her friends, but not to a stranger dragged into her office.

So she bites her lip and nuzzles into his shoulder to placate him and decides to worry about it a different day.  Because she’s not necessarily wrong—but she’s also not necessarily right.

* * *

There’s plenty in the world that’s funny—plenty that’s hilarious for many different reasons.  There are witty words woven together—those are Shireen’s favorites—or images that capture the humor of a situation through some sort of dramatic irony—Myrcella’s preference.

But there’s nothing quite like the sight of a classmate stumbling into the Ravenclaw common room wearing clothes that are much too small for him.

"Lommy," Myrcella gasps, wiping a tear from her eyes.  Shireen has slid onto the floor and is rolling around, clutching her stomach, as if in pain.  "Where on  _earth_  did you get your t-shirt?”

Lommy’s blushing furiously as he stumps past them, covered in mud except for a t-shirt that is far too small for him.  If anything, it looks like a first year’s t-shirt. His shoulders are stretching it out, and the bottom hem does not quite reach the top of his trousers.  

"Shut up, yeah?" he mutters angrily.  

Everyone in the common room is looking at them now, and a few of the younger students are whispering behind their hands.  Shireen still can’t breathe she’s laughing so hard.  

"Can I get one?" hollers a seventh year, grinning.

Lommy’s blushing furiously and he continues his way across the common room, determinedly ignoring everyone. 

That’s when he trips and Myrcella positively shrieks with laughter.

* * *

"Stark?" the word rings through the hallway and Bran turns in his chair.  Professor Lannister is standing at the end of the hallway, looking extremely serious, and Bran knows that something is wrong.  Something has to be wrong—no one looks that seriously at him unless something’s wrong.  It’s the same look that the healers had given him when he’d woken up in St. Mungo’s and he couldn’t feel his feet and they told him he never would again.   _Someone’s died_ , Bran thinks, Bran  _knows_.  But immediately after the words fill his mind, he shoves them aside.  Surely— _surely_  it’s something else.

"Professor?" Bran asks.  He wishes his voice hadn’t cracked—but it did and he winces.  Professor Lannister walks towards him, and Bran wheels his chair around to face him.  

"Bran," not Stark now—and there’s more gentleness in his voice.  But also anxiety.  It doesn’t soothe Bran at all.  "Bran, please come with me."

Bran nods, and follows Professor Lannister, not to his office, but in the direction of the Hospital Wing.  When they reach the double doors, they find Professor Dondarrion there with Sansa and Arya—Arya’s still in her quidditch things—and Professor Dustin and Rickon. 

"What’s going on?" Sansa and Bran ask at the same time.  Sansa’s eyes are wide, Rickon’s fiddling with his fingers and Arya’s face, underneath the mud from her quidditch practice, is pale.

Professor Lannister looks around at them, and, shaking his head, he says, “There’s no gentle way to say this.  I’m afraid your cousin Robert has died.”

"What?" Sansa’s gasp fills the hallway like a gust of wind, while Arya’s head snaps towards the door of the hospital wing as if she can see through them to the bed inside where Robert still undoubtedly lies.  Rickon turns from Professor Lannister and looks at Bran and Bran reaches for him numbly, numbly because somehow—somehow he had known this was coming.

* * *

Jon comes over right at five as Grenn is about to clock out, looking a little ill.

"What’s up?" Pyp asks him as he shrugs into his travelling robes.

"I hate to ask you this," Jon says and Grenn groans.  

"You’re asking us to stay late?  Again?" Grenn asks angrily.  He hasn’t got plans, but he might have.

"I’d go myself," Jon snaps, "But I can’t."  That makes Grenn frown and he looks at Pyp whose eyes have gone all narrow.

"What’s up?" Pyp asks again, more slowly this time.

"A student died at Hogwarts," Jon says.  "My…my siblings’ cousin.  Technically I can’t be on the case because it’s family.  Even if he’s not.  But…the nurse at Howarts thinks it’s natural causes.  Robert’s always been sickly.  But…all the same it’s protocol."

Grenn nods quickly.  ”Absolutely.  Are…are you all right?”

Jon shrugs.  ”I need to tell my dad.  And…and maybe my step-mother.  I don’t know.”

Grenn and Pyp share another look.  Jon doesn’t talk about his step-mother much.  And they know better than to press it.

"Right.  We’re off, then," says Pyp, and they brush past Jon.  Grenn squeezes him on the shoulder.  

When they reach the entrance of the office, they turn and glance back at him.  He’s still standing at their cubicles, staring at nothing, and it takes Pyp grabbing him by the arm and dragging him to notice that the lift has arrived.

* * *

Cat’s head jerks around when the hands on the clock begin to turn.  Ned’s hand has gone from “work” to “travelling” and a moment later, she hears him coming through the front door.  She gets to her feet, shooting Petyr an exasperated smile and hurries out to the main room.

"Ned—you’re almost an hour—"

"Cat," Ned’s voice sounds like nothing she’s ever heard before and her words die in her throat.  "Cat—Robert—little Robert.  Your nephew.  He’s died."

Silence fills the hall, heavy, overpowering and Catelyn feels like she’s stepped into a dream—a nightmare.  Robert is Lysa’s only child—was Lysa’s—and she had had such trouble conceiving him.  She remembers years and years of miscarriages, years of her sister’s glowers as Catelyn had surrounded herself with more and more children, even when she and Ned could barely afford— _dead_.  How her heart would break if any of her children died.  But to lose the only one…if she’d only had one and lost him, or had lost them all somehow—surely she’d go mad with grief.

Ned’s arms are around her, his hand resting on the back of her head, as if holding her up, and she breathes him in as he keeps speaking.  ”Jon came and told me.  They summoned law enforcement in to investigate, and he’s sent in two of his best.  He can’t go because he’s family.”  Cat bites back the words she knows come as much from shock as from the long bitterness,  _not Robert’s family,_ "He says the school notified Lysa, and he hasn’t had any information about her yet."

"We should go to her," Catelyn says numbly.  "To Hogwarts.  We should go.  The children—they’ll be upset.  Bran’s in his year, and Sansa always checked on him…"  She remembers Robert and Bran as first years, sitting together on the train, looking so similar—though Bran was oddly more robust, even though he couldn’t walk.

"Is everything all right?"

She’d forgotten that Petyr is there.  She’d forgotten all about dinner, about being upset and embarrased that Ned was late.  

"Lysa’s son is dead," Cat says and her voice sounds alien.

"Oh dear.  How terrible," he replies and there’s something so odd in his voice.  Catelyn turns away from Ned and stares at him, and finds that he looks positively calm.

* * *

"Mrs. Arryn," the little imp says and she throws as much loathing into her face as she can.

"You were supposed to keep him  _safe_ ,” she hisses and he recoils.  Good.  Good he should recoil.  How many letters had she sent him over the summer?  How many?  Her son was sickly, he needed special care, it was important that the school know that, that the school take care of him, and the school had promised, and what had the little imp done?  Wiped his ass with her letters probably, and now her Robert, her Sweetrobin…

"Mrs. Arryn, I can assure you, we did all within our power," he’s saying, but she doesn’t care—she doesn’t care at all and she cuts him off with a snarl.

"You were supposed to keep my son safe.  You were supposed to keep my son  _alive.”_ Somewhere, it turns into a shriek and he takes another step back.  ”But you didn’t! You killed him!  Like your sister killed my  _husband!”_   Her wand is in her hand now and she’s waving it, but the little devil is quick and he’s disarmed her and she lets out another howl.  ”Give it back!   Give it back to me now!”  

"Mrs. Arryn, please.  Please—let’s…let’s go to the hospital wing. You’ll want…want to see him."

That is when she starts to cry.

* * *

She goes with him—the imp and his dog looming over them like an ugly brute.  She doesn’t know why he’s there.  Lannister can fight his own battles—he’s still got her wand as if he’s afraid she’ll hit him unawares.  What does he need Clegane for?

She hears the sound of her breath and their footsteps echoing off the stone of the corridors.  The corridors aren’t empty—aren’t empty at all, but she can’t hear anyone else.  She can only hear their footsteps and the little moans she makes as she walks.  She must sound distraught, she must look a fool, but she doesn’t care—doesn’t care at all because what is there left to care about in this world now that Robert…Petyr had said he’d be safe, that they’d give him his potions and all would be well.  She wishes Petyr were here now, that Petyr had her hand in his, and his gentle words, and his—oh oh oh she hurts, she hurts all over and nowhere all at once.

"Your nieces and nephews are with him," Lannister says, and almost at once anger flares in her. Robert had always written about them—classes with Bran and Sansa coming and reading to him while he was feeling unwell.  "She looks so much like you," he’d written, "it makes me feel like you’re here when I’m feeling shaky."  Oh what she wouldn’t have given to be there with him every single time he’d had to ask Cat’s daughter to visit him.  She probably had begrudged it—time away from her studies and her friends.  She’d never loved her boy the way that Lysa does, she never  _could_ , and yet she is there with him now, there and Lysa is still on her way.

* * *

"Get away from him you little bitch," she shrieks when they enter the hospital wing and he sees the Stark girl start in shock, confusion crossing her face.  

"Mrs. Arryn," Lannister begins, but she waves him away the way she’s been waving him away all evening as she hurries across the ward to the bed that all four of the Starks are gathered around.  She rips her son’s hand from Sansa’s and shoves her aside.  The girl almost falls to the ground as she gets out of her aunt’s way.

"Please, Aunt Lysa," Sansa says, "I was only—"

"I don’t care.  I don’t  _care_ ,” she’s crying again now, and staring at her son’s face.  He almost looks peaceful, in his sleep.  ”Get out.  Get  _out,_ you horrible girl.”

"Aunt Lysa," the older boy—Bran, says.  "We’re so sorry.  It’s—"

"Shut  _up!”_  she wails.  ”Shut up and  _leave me be with my son!”_

The younger one helps Sansa to her feet, and Arya grabs the handles of Bran’s chair and wheels him away without saying a single word.  Her face is hard when they reach the door, and he sees a cocktail of emotions in those heavy grey eyes—sadness, confusion, affront.

He wishes he didn’t notice the way that Sansa’s got tears in her eyes, blue eyes bright and shining, and her lips trembling as she holds her little brother’s hand and leaves the ward.

* * *

Sansa’s run off to a prefect’s meeting, even though Bran tells her he’s  _sure_  that everyone will be all right if she misses it.  But Sansa doesn’t listen to him, even though she’s still crying.  

Arya  and Rickon walk down to the great hall, Arya pushing Bran’s chair.  She feels empty.  It isn’t as though she’d been  _close_  to Robert.  He’d never been interested in her, the way he was with Sansa, and they’d never had classes together or anything, but still…he was family.  He looked like Bran, too, though his hair was darker.  It had been almost like seeing Bran lying in the hospital again after he’d fallen.  Except that Bran had still been breathing, and there had been some color in his cheeks while Robert…

She shudders.

"Want a piggy back ride?" she asks Rickon, desperate to say something, to break the silence somehow.

"I’m too old for that," he says, and she rolls her eyes.

"Are not.  Jon gives  _me_  piggy backs all the time,” she replies.  She nudges him with her hip and he looks up at her.  He’s so small, and confused.

"Never look a gift piggy back ride in the mouth," Bran says.  "They are offered less and less as time goes on."  

"All right, then," Rickon mumbles.  Arya crouches down and he clambers onto her back.  He’s heavy—and soon he’ll be too big for her to carry on her back.  Her hands find the back of Bran’s chair and she keeps pushing, making their way down to the Great Hall where they can at least pretend to study.

"Arya—Bran—Rickon."  

Arya’s heart swells, warms, and she bites back tears because she hadn’t expected to hear  _that_  voice, hadn’t realized how much she’d needed it until she did.  A moment later, she’s hurrying into her mother’s outstretched arms, and just standing there because if she lets go of Rickon’s legs he’ll fall off her back because he’s not holding on—he’s reaching for their mother too.

"You’re all muddy," Mother says, but it doesn’t sound like a criticism at all.  It sounds like she’d have it no other way, and Arya feels her throat constrict, and hears Ricon begin to cry.

* * *

She shouldn’t have gone to the meeting.  Bran was right.  She shouldn’t have.  She should have stayed with them, gone down to the Great Hall and had tea and breathed and not gone to the  _fucking_  prefects’ meeting.  She can barely speak without trembling, can barely think at all, and it’s not long before she just stops trying and doesn’t even bother listening to Devan because she’s sure he can bloody well manage on his own.

Ned is watching her and she wishes desperately he wouldn’t—not now—not when nothing’s right, except she’s also glad that he’s noticed—even if it means that everyone else has.  For some reason it’s different coming from him.  And, when the meeting is over, he asks her if she wants him to walk her back to Gryffindor tower and she lies and says she’s got something down in the Great Hall to get to.  It’s not a lie—not really.  She hopes desperately Bran and Rickon and Arya are still there, but she’s glad he takes her tone as final and leaves her, looking as though it’s against his better judgement.

She’s halfway down the fourth floor when she stumbles over a loose rug and lands on her hands and knees, sending shoots of pain up her limbs.  She just sits there, and starts crying again, because of that would happen on today of all days.  Of course it would.  One more bad thing on top of—

"Sansa?"  She looks up and sees Pod Payne standing over her.  He offers her his hand and she takes it, letting him pull her to her feet.  

"Thanks," she mutters, wiping her tears away.  She puts on a smile, but doesn’t mean it, and she can see in his face that he knows that and she starts crying again.

"Everything all right?" Pod asks, and she just shakes her head.  "Where do you want to go?"

"Home.  I want to go home."  She feels like such a silly little girl saying it, and even more like a silly little girl that Pod awkwardly reaches over and gives her a quick hug.  

"How about we find your sister or brothers, then," he says gently, and she nods and together, they walk down to the Great Hall.

* * *

"This medicine, do you still have samples of it?" Grenn asks.

"Of course," says Mr. Maester.  His hands are shaking as he collects the bottle of potion from a shelf at the back of the ward and hands it to Grenn.  It has  _Robert Arryn, once a week_ , written on it in neet lettering.

"And who provided you with the medicine?" asks Pyp.  His quill is at the ready, and Grenn’s glad to see he’s already got a full page of notes.  

"From the boy’s mother.  She sends potions along with him every year.  Always something new, always something prescribed by a healer at St. Mungo’s."

"And do you ever mix the potions yourself?" asks Grenn.

"No," says Mr. Maester.  "I do not.  Mrs. Arryn has made it clear on numerous occasions that I should only ever administer, and that she will provide the potions."

"Thank you, Mr. Maester," says Pyp.  He turns to Grenn, and jerks his head towards the ward, and the two leave his office.

"Mrs. Arryn," Grenn says, as gently as he can, "We have a few questions, if you wouldn’t mind…"  She doesn’t look up, and her sister gives him a black look for even approaching her.  

"I can do my best to help."  The man’s voice is quiet, smooth.  He’s a small man, with a goatee, and he extends an arm, directing them away from the bedside.  Grenn shoots an uneasy glance at Pyp.  Pyp looks just as skeptical, but he takes a step, and follows the man.

* * *

It’s later than he usually stays up when the prefects come and chide them all back to bed.  Dad stayed with them while Mum went up to talk to Aunt Lysa, and Sansa showed up after her meeting, looking about as miserable as he feels.  He feels miserable, he feels alone, and when they’re all sent back to their dorms, he wishes that he wasn’t going back to Slytherin, he wishes he were going up to Ravenclaw with Bran.  

Even Dad doesn’t go with him.  Dad goes up to the Hospital Wing to find Mum, and he’s completely alone and he doesn’t want to be, but they’re all away now.  Forced apart because they’ll all get in trouble if they stay together.  He wishes Sansa could tell Jorelle Mormont that she’s Head Girl and she gives them special permission to stay together, or something, but Sansa has always followed rules to the letter and she’s the first one standing when Mormont comes and makes them all separate.

He’s never felt so far away from them as he climbs into his bed in his dark dormitory.  He’s never felt so alone, and confused, and all he wants is to not be on his own.  

It’s odd.  He knows he shouldn’t feel this way, knows it’s got nothing to do with everything, but he feels oddly abandoned, oddly unprotected.  

He puts a pillow over his face, and tries to force himself to go to sleep, wiling himself not to cry again.

* * *

When Lysa had been a little girl, she’d always been a dreamer.  She’d always had her head in the clouds, imagining what her life would be like.  She’d find the perfect husband, have the perfect children, wouldn’t need to go to work because she’d have enough money, either from Father or because her perfect husband was wealthy.

She wonders where that Lysa went, and when.  The Lysa she sees, the Lysa she sits with in the Hospital Wing can’t stop shaking, can’t stop crying, moaning, swearing that her world has ended.  The Lysa sitting next to her reaches first for Petyr, and  _then_  for Catelyn.  Lysa would never have done that when they were young together in school.  Petyr was as good as a brother, but Lysa would never have turned to him before she turned to Cat.

It’s well past midnight before they pry her away from her son.  It’s well past midnight before Lysa brushes past her and Petyr, with a look of sympathy, wraps his arm around her shoulder, casting a look of farewell to Cat before he accompanies Lysa out of the ward.

When did she lose her sister?  How?  Ned has lost his siblings, but death was so different from this.

Catelyn reaches for Ned’s hand and finds it, warm and solid and squeezing hers back.  

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lysa, Catelyn, Jon, Grenn, Pyp, Rickon, Cersei, Jaime, Daenerys, Missandei, Arianne, Gerold, Jeyne, Sansa, Brienne, Theon, Robb, Bran, Lyanna M., Arya, Gendry, Sam, Gilly, Melisandre, Arthur, Oberyn, Ellaria, Roslin, Edmure, Sandor, Jon C., Rhaenys, Viserys, Tywin

Catelyn writes Lysa three times in the span of the next two days.   _Come round for dinner, or let me come over and cook for you_.  

_Edmure has offered to stay over with you while the investigation is going on.  You are, of course welcome to stay with me and Ned, but I thought the comfort of your own home might be best._

_Lysa, please write back.  Please let me know how I can help._

But she gets no replies from her sister.  And on the third day, Cat doesn’t know what to say, so she doesn’t write at all.

* * *

"Anything?"  Jon’s hovering again, and Pyp rolls his eyes.

"Nothing new so far," he sighs, rubbing his hands over his face and letting out a tired grunt.  

"The potions all come from St. Mungo’s, and are all prepared in standard form by the healers over there," says Grenn.  He’s got a rubber ball in his hand and is bouncing it off the cubicle wall as he tilts back in his chair.  Pyp wishes he wouldn’t do that.  He’ll fall one day and break his bleeding neck.

"And they couldn’t have been tampered with?" asks Jon, his brow furrowed.

"Could have been, yeah.  Mr. Maester is very thorough though, and Professor Lannister has expressed his complete support of the nurse, so, there we are.  Healer Reed’s been helpful, and is performing some tests alongside someone over in the auror department, but I don’t think we’ll find any difference.  More likely the boy just had something undiagnosed and untreated."  Pyp shoots Jon a sad look.  "It’s really very sad."

"Yeah," Jon sighs.  "Yeah—it is.  I just…I wish there were progress I could give to my step-mother."

"She giving you trouble?" asks Grenn, tilting his chair forward.

"Nah.  But still…I know she’s…it’d help.  You know?"  Jon shakes his head as if shaking away a fly, grimaces and turns away.  "Right.  I’m off for the night."  As he goes, Grenn gives Pyp a look.

"You don’t think she’s giving him trouble, do you?" he asks quietly.

"Couldn’t say," Pyp sighs, not really wanting to examine the possibilities.

Everyone’s really nice to him.  Jorelle comes over and sits with him at breakfast each day and says nice things, and talks about how when there’s trouble, the nice thing about Slytherin is that everyone pulls together.  His fellow First Years offer to take notes for him if he wants to go and lie down and skip class.  ”If points get docked for it, we’ll make them up!” Perra says while they wait outside of History of Magic. Even Arya’s little Gryffindor friend Weasel from Broom Club smiles at him from across the classroom when they’re in Potions together.

It doesn’t help though—not really.  It’s nice, but it doesn’t help.  The only thing that helps is going and sitting with Bran over dinner, and Arya spotting them together and coming over from the Gryffindor table, and the three of them eating together like they would when they were home.  Sometimes Sansa would even come, though more often she’d wave, and shoot an apologetic look over at someone she’d promised to eat with.

He wonders what would happen if he asked Professor Lannister if he could switch Houses, sometimes.   Slytherin is nice, but he didn’t feel like he  _belongs_  with Slytherin.  He misses his family, he misses Bran’s smile, and the way that Arya ruffles his hair the way that Jon ruffles hers, and the way that, when he’s sitting with Sansa, out of the corner of his eye she almost looks like Mum.

But he doesn’t ask.  He guesses he’s not truly a Gryffindor because he’s too scared to get into trouble for even asking.  Who asks for a new Hogwarts House, anyway?  He’s just too much of a big baby.

* * *

Cersei is still not done crowing at him over that bloody  _Witch Weekly_  article.  She quotes parts of it at him while they’re in bed together, when he’s not quite out of her, and she laughs when he rolls his eyes.

”It’s good publicity for you, my ‘more handsome as he gets older’ brother,” she says, kissing the underside of his jaw.  ”And given everything  _he’s_  doing at Hogwarts, good publicity for the family is necessary.”

He ignores the way her voice grows harsh, and she doesn’t even say Tyrion’s name.  He focuses on the scent of her sweat, on the way she clenches around him as if urging him to grow hard again.  He doesn’t care if she’s right, or if she’s wrong—she thinks about these things too much anyway—because there’s no point in thinking about that now.  Not when they’re in bed together, not when it’s just the two of them, and the world outside is kept at bay by the circle of her arms.

* * *

"What made you want to study dragons?" Missandei asks her one day. Dany has her broom thrown over her shoulder and there is mud caking her boots.  She casts a sideways glance at Missandei and sees the girllooking at her with bright wide eyes.

"I dunno," she lies.  "What made you want to come here?"

Missandei’s lips twitch inwards, and Dany raises an eyebrow.  ”This one…this one wanted to get away.  This one wanted an adventure,” Missandei mutters at last, and something rather like a frog lodges in Dany’s throat.  

She thinks of her mother, tight-lipped and unseeing; of Viserys and his constant stream of bitter diatribes; of Rhaegar and his children and Elia, who none of them seem to be able to shake the taint of having lived under her father’s regime.  And then there’s Dany.  Dany, who remembers none of it besides what they tell her, but who—of all her family members—looks the most like her father.

"I know the feeling," she says, nodding.  "I’m by and large the same."

She reaches over and squeezes Missandei’s hand, and Missandei smiles, and squeezes it back.

* * *

"Look—I’m not saying you have to do anything," Arianne says, pressing her books into his hands.  Gerold glances down at them.  

"What are you doing reading  _The Rise and Fall of Aerys Targaryen_?” he asks with a snort.

"Call it research," Arianne repleis vaguely.

"Research?  For what?"

"Well, if you were listening," she begins, rolling her eyes.

"Which I wasn’t."

"I noticed."  

Gerold grins.  ”What were you saying I don’t have to do anything for?”

The corner of Arianne’s eye twitches.  ”You say you’re looking for a roommate?”

"Yeah," he says, shrugging.  "Why?"

"How do you feel about Targaryens?"

* * *

"I’m sorry about your cousin."  Sansa looks up from her History of Magic essay to find Jeyne standing there, her bookbag slung over her shoulder and a conciliatory expression on her face.  Jeyne hasn’t spoken to her in over two weeks now, but that hardly seems to matter, because Sansa’s so glad to see her there, looking gentle and caring and the way that a best friend should.  Sansa feels her eyes prickle—the way they have on and off since Robert died—and blinks furiously.

"Thanks," she says quietly, and Jeyne sits down next to her.  

"You all right?" Jeyne asks.

 _No_ , Sansa wants to say.  She can’t help but feel it’s her fault, somehow.  She knows it’s a silly idea.  She couldn’t have done anything to help him, and she certainly hadn’t done anything to harm him, but Merlin…she’d been sitting with him the day before he’d…before he’d…

"I suppose," Sansa says, smiling over at Jeyne.  It’s a fixed smile, the sort that doesn’t let on anything inside, the sort that everyone—even Jeyne, who has been her friend forever—takes at face value.  It’s what’s expected of her, isn’t it?  To be carrying on while all this is going on?  To hide away the part of her that wants to cry?

* * *

"You wanted to see me?"  Jaime looks up from his paperwork to see Tarth standing there, too tall and and looking like she were trying to shrink herself back into the door frame.

"Come in, sit down," he says, gesturing to the chair on the other side of the desk.  She perches like an over-sized bird, as if afraid that her bulk will shatter the chair.  Jaime sits there, watching her for a moment.  "You’re uncomfortable," he says at last.

"Sir?"

"You’re uncomfortable.  Right now."

"A little, sir."  She blushes red against her freckles.

"Well, what are you worried about?  What do you think I’m going to ask you?"

She flushes even redder and he almost feels bad for her.  ”You’re going to assign me a mentor, sir.” She says, and he nods, and with that nod, her body seems to relax.  She certainly looks less like she’s perching on her chair, anyway.

He glances down at her paperwork.  He’d planned on assigning her to Tyrell—as a joke, really.  Tyrell would make a bloody awful mentor, and it would be funny to watch him try.  He knew enough of Tarth’s file to know that she probably wouldn’t need that much mentorship anyway, and it would be a good way to help Tyrell grow up a little.  But the joke dies as he watches her sitting there, the blush fading from her face.

"Yes," he says.  "And that will be me."

* * *

Something’s definitely off with Theon.  Like—not just off, but  _really_  off.  Like, no, he doesn’t feel like chatting up that girl even though she’s looking at him and sizing him up, and his eyes all distant, and he’s jumpy.

It was the jumpy thing that Robb had noticed first, but Jon had suggested that it might just be something that he picked up doing his work in Egypt.  ”Sometimes you get jumpy when you don’t have a desk job, Robb,” Jon had said, rolling his eyes.  Jon doesn’t like talking about Theon much, though, so Robb always lets it drop.  Even if Jon’s probably the most helpful.  Jon knows how to deal with people who’ve gone all jumpy because of something…

Something bad.

Something bad had definitely happened to Theon, and he isn’t talking about it, isn’t acknowledging it at all, and he’s fixating on it—Robb can tell, because Theon’s eyes are distant and he’s not chatting up every girl he sees.

Robb has half a mind to write his sister and see if she has anything to say on the subject, but he doesn’t.  He just goes to bars with Theon and watches him, and does his best to have a good time because if Theon wants a distraction, he’ll give him a distraction, but fuck—is that actually what’s best?

* * *

"Oy—have you seen your sister?"  Bran looks up from  _A Guide to Britain’s Magical Conifers_  to find Lyanna Mormont standing over him, her hands on her hips.

"No," Bran replies, frowning.  "Why would I have seen her?"  

"No one else has," Lyanna says.  "And she told us she’d have updates to the quidditch schedule by lunch today.  Not all of us only fly.  Some of us have other clubs we participate in."  

"Well…I dunno.  Sometimes she…" he pauses as Lyanna’s eyes narrow at him.  "Sometimes she just vanishes for a little while.  I’m sure she’ll be back soon.  Arya doesn’t shirk Quidditch unless she’s got a good reason." 

Lyanna frowns slightly, and Bran sees her connect the dots and that look of sympathy crosses her face—the one that everyone’s been giving all of them since it happened.  Bran hates the expression.  It just goes to remind him of everything, and he’d been doing such a good job focusing on his readings and distracting himself, but when people smile like that, all he sees is Robert’s pale face, or the empty seat in their Arithmancy class.  ”Sorry.  Sorry wasn’t thinking,” she mutters.  

"It’s all right," Bran replies, his voice sounding compressed even to his own ears.

"If you see her…"

"I’ll let her know you were looking."  He smiles, though whether to reassure her or himself he doesn’t know.

* * *

She’s been breaking this rule for ages—to the point that it almost doesn’t feel like she’s even  _breaking_  it anymore.  It’s the stupidest rule, really.  That you can’t leave the castle grounds on a weekend.  She’s fifteen now—almost sixteen.  What’s so dangerous about Hogsmeade?  Why does she need special permission on certain weekends to go?

All the same, she doesn’t go into the village proper.  She stays near the outskirts, just outside of the gate.  All the magical protection in the world and they didn’t think that someone might just climb it.  She’d done it on a bet when she’d been twelve and no one had ever known that she’d gone to the other side.

It’s raining, and a little chilly, and she knows that Lyanna wants to know when they’ve rescheduled this week’s Quidditch practice for, but Lyanna will wait, because this is the first time Gendry hasn’t had a game on Saturday in ages, and he’s come to see her.  He’d insisted on it, really, once he’d heard about Robert.  And she’d called him stupid for insisting—like he  _needed_ an excuse to come say hi—but she’d been glad of it anyway, because when she catches sight of him leaning against the gates, waiting for her, something inside her twitches and she’s glad she doesn’t have to give any sort of excuse when she drops down on the other side of the gate and dives into his outstretched arms.

* * *

"You’re cold."  Gendry snorts.  She hasn’t let go of him, though, and her face is still pressed against his chest and he suspects that she might be trying to hide tears.

"Yeah, well, you’re late and it’s raining," he says.  His arms are still wrapped around her and he feels more than hears a huff.  

"Didn’t think to do up your jacket?"  She’s fiddling with the zippers now and finally tips her head up.  She looks like she’s trying not to look sad.  

"Didn’t know you’d care so much."  The corner of her mouth twitches in a smile that doesn’t quite meet her eyes.  He wants to ask her how she’s doing, how her brothers are doing, if she’s…he doesn’t know how to though.  He remembers the unasked questions from when his mum died, and how he wished people would just say something, but he suddenly realizes how hard it is to say something—to say anything—that’s meaningful at all.

* * *

It begins to rain in earnest and they walk along the edge of the grounds and she tells him everything.  She tells him how they don’t know what caused it, how Robert looked like Bran after he fell and was sent to the hospital, how Rickon’s upset and lonely, how Sansa is too busy with her Head Girl duties to do anything with them, even if it’s just sitting over dinner.  She tells him how people keep telling her it’s all right if she doesn’t do anyhting, when all she wants to do is to do  _something_  because doing nothing isn’t anywhere near distracting enough.  She tells him how her father has sent notes about her mother not sleeping properly, and how Jon and Robb offered to meet up with them all next weekend when they have a formal Hogsmeade weekend, and how all of that feels like it should mean something, but there’s still this numbness inside her that she hates and doesn’t understand.  

And she tells this to Gendry because Gendry always listens, and Gendry always somehow knows what to say, and Gendry’s always warm and sturdy and supportive and the feeling of his arms wrapped around her made her feel better than anything anyone else had tried so far.

But she shouldn’t think like that.  Shouldn’t at all—not when he’s  _Jon’s_ age and she’s still in school.  But even though it’s raining and they’re walking in the cold, she doesn’t  _feel_  cold at all.  She feels warm, actually.  Very warm.

* * *

It is a rainy and blustery afternoon, and Sam knows he really should be inside, helping the Fourth Years with their Potions Research Papers, but it’s a Saturday too, and the Prefects are on duty in the library, and can get on without him for a few hours.  Besides, it’s the sort of rainy afternoon where any student is more likely to go back and curl up in their beds, not get ahead on their studies, and he didn’t doubt the library would be empty until just after dinner anyway.

He orders a pint at the Three Broomsticks and smiles at Gilly when she fills his mug with butterbeer.

"It’s chilly out today," he says happily, and she nods.  "I like the chill.  Means winter’s coming on."

"You like Winter?" she asks him.  She sounds confused by the very prospect of it.

"No," he says.  "Not particularly.  But it’s a nice change from summer—at least for the first few weeks.  And I suppose it’s never too cold up at the castle."

Gilly nods.  She’s a distant one, Gilly.  Quiet—never wanting to attract too much attention.  Sam knows what’s that like, and as she moves away down the bar to help another customer, he can’t help  but wonder if she has any friends at all.

"Is it just you here then?" he asks her quietly when she returns.  She starts and her eyes widen.  "I just meant," he says quickly, "Do you have a family.  Or…or are you on your own.  D’you have…" his voice drifts away because even to his own ears, it sounds a horrible question.  Even to his own ears, it sounds horrifyingly prying, and he lifts his butterbeer to his lips, abashed.

When he puts the mug down, she refills it.  ”Just me and my son,” she says quietly, and when Sam digs out another sickle to give to her, she shoves it back at him across the bar, and he sees in her eyes that she had known why he was asking.

* * *

Robert is having another affair.  She can smell it on him, the way a dog can smell fear.  He tries to hide it with the scent of firewhiskey, the excuse of “I was out with Ned,” even though she knows full well that Ned’s at home with his bereaved wife, just as Ned is always home with his wife, because Ned likes nothing more than making love to his wife when the children aren’t around.  Cersei finds it undignified, but then again, whatever makes them happy.  She prefers sneaking off with Jaime.  Perhaps if she were married to Jaime instead, they would be as disgustingly domestic as Ned and Catelyn Stark.  No.  No they wouldn’t be.  They would never be so dull as that.

She had decided years before—after Edric Storm had been born—that every time that Robert cheated on her, she would cheat on him.  The only difference was that it would be with the same man every time, no matter how many times Robert changed beds.  And so when Robert comes home stinking of firewhiskey and lemonbalm perfume, she smiles to herself that smile that she saves when she knows that she’ll be surprising Jaime at his flat sometime later that week, and Robert will be relieved because he’ll get home first, shower the little slut’s scent off him, and then ask her how her brother is.

* * *

She knows of course that they were lying about the little girl Missandei.  She isn’t a fool.  It had been plain to see that Missandei and Grey Worm were not brother in sister.  They couldn’t be related.  They didn’t even hail from the same countries.  So what was she doing there?

She could write it up in the report, of course.  It would be expected, and it would also bring down a heavy and thorough investigation onto the Dragon Haven.  Add in the fact that the Haven was run by Aerys Targaryen’s daughter and it would be quite a spot of trouble. _  
_

But Melisandre has always thought of herself as the sort of person to do the right thing, and there was something about that little group in Romania that…she isn’t sure.  She isn’t sure if reporting the presence of a clandestine and underage body is in fact the right thing at all.

* * *

"I thought you said you were never going to take another mentee," Arthur says to him over lunch.  He’s got that half-smirk on his face, the one that he wears to remind people that he’s  _Arthur Dayne_ , even if the Arthur Dayne Jaime had known when  _he’d_  been a mentee had metaphorically died in the war.

"Well, I took one," Jaime sighs.  "She’s got potential, and I didn’t want to give her to Tyrell in the end."

"Merlin, why would you give anyone to Tyrell?" Arthur snorts.  "That boy shouldn’t be allowed to mentor anyone until he grows some fucking hair on his chest."

Jaime doesn’t say anything, but he does make a noise in agreement as he takes a bite of his sandwich.  

Arthur stretches. “Well, so long as you never give me one to mentor ever again, you can do as you like.”

"I’ll bear that in mind.  As your supervisor," Jaime responds dryly, rolling his eyes, and Arthur laughs.

"Eh.  Like you can make me do anything you little shit."

* * *

Robb comes right out and asks it one night while they’re sitting in a booth towards the back of a pub and Theon’s rocking back and forth nervously because he likes it best when he can see all the doors and he can’t quite see the front door from their booth.  Robb comes right out and asks “Theon—what’s wrong?” and it’s not even “are you all right?” or “what haven’t you been telling me?” which is how Asha would say it, and Theon doesn’t know what to say, couldn’t know what to say because how can he…he doesn’t know how to tell anyone what happened in Egypt much less Robb sitting there, hale and hearty and concerned.

"Nothing’s wrong," he squeaks, squeaks because he’s surprised, squeaks because his voice breaks and Robb’s eyebrows shoot up and he knows that Robb doesn’t believe him.

"Nothing?" Robb asks, and his eyes are begging Theon to just tell him the truth.

"Nothing."

* * *

Elia is still in the hospital.  She’s been in there for ages now—longer than she’s been in a while, and Oberyn seems to sag whenever he think of it.  Ellaria doesn’t know what to say.  Encouragement had been easy in the first few weeks.  ”Elia will pull through.  She always does,” hardly seemed like something wrong to say because that was the truth of it.  Elia had been ill many times before and, unfortunately, would be for the rest of her life.  But now…

Now they don’t talk of it.  Oberyn goes into the hospital four times a week, bringing flowers and candies and news of the girls, and he comes back both with a smile and with shoulders that hang almost limp.  Gone is his confident swagger, gone is that teasing smile she loved to kiss until quite a different smile came to his lips.  His mind is so wholly elsewhere that she worries if it doesn’t come bad, she won’t be able to follow.  Even their nights at Willas’ hardly seem enough to distract him anymore, though Willas hardly notices.

Ellaria doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know what to say.  She writes the girls, and they send him letters, but even then, his eyes stay distant, stay scared.  And when that fear begins to seep into her so deeply that she can’t wash it away, she writes to Rhaenys.

* * *

"Darling, you’re sure there isn’t anything I can do?" she asks him for what seems the hundredth time.  Edmure just shakes his head.  

"Lysa’s like this sometimes.  And…and it’s not like we can just make her calm down and be happy.  Her  _son’s_  just died, Ros.” He finishes tying his shoe laces and leans over to kiss her.  He’s got a dutifully sad look on his face, and she reaches up and runs her thumb over his cheek bone.

"Still—I could…I don’t know.  Cook something for her, couldn’t I?  Or sit with her?  There has to be something.  I mean—I know you’re working, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t step in on your behalf and do something for your sister, couldn’t I?"

Edmure frowns.  ”I…maybe.  It might be…it could go bad.  Lysa’s thorny sometimes.”

"Thornier than Morya?" Roslin demands.  

Edmure’s frown grows deeper and more confused.  ”Which one’s Morya?”

"My half-sister."

"You’ve got a lot of them."  He grimaces, and she almost laughs.

"You’ll get them one day."

Edmure sighs.  ”I suppose if you really want to.  But it might not be the best time to try and endear yourself to Lysa.  She’s harder than Cat.”

"Alternatively, it’s the perfect time," says Roslin.  She kisses him.

* * *

She’s shoving the last bit of her lunch into her into her mouth when Bran rolls up behind her and taps her on the shoulder.  ”You haven’t heard from Mum lately, have you?”

She looks around, swallowing with tremendous effort, then says, “No.  Dad’s written some, but Mum’s been quiet.  Why?”

Bran grimaces.  ”Something from Jon’s letter.”

"You’ve heard from Jon?" Arya asks quickly.  Jon hadn’t written her a thing in over two weeks.  She’s sure he was busy with the promotion and everything, but if he’d written to Bran…

"I asked him about the investigation," Bran sighs.  "He didn’t tell me much.  Can’t.  But he mentioned that Mum’s been off, and I was wondering if you’d heard from her at all."

Arya shakes her head again.  ”Nothing.  Not a word.  Maybe Rickon or Sansa?”

"Rickon hasn’t.  I haven’t seen much of Sansa.  You’ll ask if you see her?"

Arya glances up the table.  Sansa’s deep in conversation with Jeyne Poole, her face smooth and unconcerned.  ”Yeah, if I get a moment,” she replies quietly.  Bran nods and begins to roll away.

"Bran?"

"Yeah?"

"How off?"

She almost dreads the response, the way that Bran frowns and wiggles his lips like he’s trying to figure out what he’s saying.  ”Off.  He just said off.”

* * *

"What made you want to be an auror?" Lannister asks her as he flips through the file she’s prepared for him.  He hardly seems to be paying any attention to the work she’d put in, his eyes glancing from paragraph to paragraph as he turns the pages.

"Sir?"

"Well, most people have some fort of reason for signing up," he says.  He pauses on a chart, she can tell because it’s on page six and takes up most of the page.

Brienne stiffens slightly.  ”My…my mother died in the war.  I wanted to do her proud.”

His eyes lift to look at her, his expression the exact same as when he’d been reviewing her chart.  It only lasts a second, and then he’s looking bak down at the file.

"What about you, sir?" she asks after a moment of silence.

He pauses, considering.  ”I suppose you could say my damned Gryffindor idealim if you like.  Though truly, it was because my sister asked it.”

* * *

He’s taken to reading ads in  _The Daily Prophet_ , but they’re all fucking stupid.

 _Hiring: Medical Test Subject.  10 Galleons/test.  Allergic to nettles_ , as though he’d willingly go and let them try potions and spells on him without any clue how to fix it if it went wrong.  He has just enough bloody self respect not to do that.

 _Salesperson at Flourish and Blotts.  Well read.  Friendly._ He could laugh.

 _The Ministry of Magic is recruiting new security guards to take the night shift at the_ he doesn’t even bother finishing that one because like fuck would he leave working for one Lannister to go working for the rest of them.  Because sure, the rest of them weren’t so bad as  _him_ , but that doesn’t mean that they take him seriously.  Besides, Gregor works for the Ministry.  And he’d be an idiot to go anywhere near Gregor.

He sighs and closes the paper.  Nothing new.  No options just yet.  Maybe he should go to the south of France and take up painting.  It is not a thought that makes him smile.

* * *

He knows it’s uncharitable—knows it’s horrible—knows it’s the worst thing a friend could possibly think, given the circumstances of it all—but he wishes that Elia would either just get better for good, or succumb to her illness.  He can’t actually remember the last time that Rhaegar had a smile on his face, the last time that he seemed happy—at least so far as Rhaegar could seem happy.  

He knows—knows it’s horrible, knows that even thinking that makes him the worst person he could possibly be—the sort of person that gets put on watch lists or whatever, but he can’t help it.  He just watches Rhaegar waste a way a little more every day, and it breaks his heart.

Rhaegar is glorious, and good—far better than the  _Prophet_  would have people believe.  He has had a hard enough life.  He doesn’t deserve this in addition. 

* * *

He should have told Robb.  He really should have.  He kicks himself for days after not having done it.  Robb had asked him.  Robb wouldn’t have judged him.  Robb would have heled him.  Robb would have known what to do.  

Merlin, he’s every bit as stupid and stubborn as Asha’s ever told him he is, and it takes him a moment before he drops onto his bed before he realizes that his light had been on before he’d entered the room, ad there’s something sitting on the chair in the corner.  

It’s an envelope, and he squints at it, trying to make out the lettering and feeling his heart rate triple as he sees the word  _Reek_  scrawled in dried blood.

* * *

It’s past midnight, and Jon’s sitting in his father’s kitchen, drinking a beer while his father sits there with an empty cup of tea.  

"You’re sure?" Dad breathes, and Jon grimaces and nods. 

"It was definitely tampered with.  Like definitely tampered with.  We don’t know who, but we’re about to put in a call for a deeper investigation of the matter."

Dad sighs and twists his empty teacup in his hands.  ”Well, that’ll set Cat’s mind to ease, somewhat.  At least…at least someone’ll be caught for it.”

Jon nods, and the question aches in him—more now than it has in years.  Maybe because it’s late, or because he’s tired, or because he knows that Catelyn will be grateful for his work, and the work of his team, and making Catelyn grateful always leaves a strange taste in the back of his throat and…

"She’d be proud of me?  My mum."

His dad raises the empty teacup to his lips and tries to sip from it.  Then he frowns at it and puts it back on the table.  With a grunt, he says.  ”Yes.  She would be.”

And Jon can’t stop himself.  ”Who is she?  You promised you’d tell me.”

And he knows he’ll get an answer this time, knows it because he sees the way his father’s shoulders sag, the way his eyes drop to the wood of the table.  Dad leans forward on his elbows and presses his palms to face and the room is silent.  

"There’s…there’s no easy way to say it," Dad says at last, his voice muffled.  He sits back in his chair and looks Jon dead in the eyes and Jon’s stomach twists into knots.  "I’m not your father.  You’re Lyannas son."

"What?" The word isn’t Jon’s, but it might as well be.  They both turn to the kitchen door and find Catelyn standing there, wrapped in a bathrobe, staring at her husband in complete shock.

* * *

The only consolation she has is Petyr.  Petyr, who curls up next to her in her bed, who wraps his arms around her and tells her that they’ll find out who killed her son, that justice will be served, who keeps Edmure and his silly little girlfriend at bay, who tells her she doesn’t have to write to Cat if she doesn’t want to…

Part of her wants to die as well.  How hard had it been giving birth to Robert?  How many times had she conceived and then…and he’d survived, he’d been strong, even when he’d been ill and…

"It doesn’t do to dwell on it, Lysa," Petyr whispers in her ear, running his hand through her hair.  "He’s gone.  There’s nothing you can do."

It only makes her cry harder, only makes her cling to him more, because without Robert, all she really has left in this world is Petyr, and he’s here with her, with  _her_  and not with Cat.

* * *

 

"He’s been bad," Ellaria whispers to Rhaenys, who sighs and leans against the wall.  "There isn’t anything you can—"

"What can I say?  We don’t know what’s wrong with her.  We never have.  I don’t know if we ever will.  She’s no worse than usual, but she’s getting better more slowly—"

"Doesn’t that usually indicate that someone is worse?" Ellaria asks.  She glances across the ward to where Oberyn and Elia are playing chess.  Oberyn isn’t clean shaven, but she knows he’ll shave when he gets back home.  Elia had remarked upon it, and he’ll do it for her, even if he doesn’t have the…she can’t think that way.  Not now.

Rhaenys sighs.  ”I suppose.  Yes.  Yes it does.”  She crosses her arms around her stomach, as if she’s trying to shrink in on herself, and she looks at them as well.  ”And there’s nothing…” she asks almost wistfully.

Ellaria shakes her head.  ”Elia’s the only one who’ll help him see sense.  But he’s too afraid of losing her and…and she’s too afraid of losing him to really talk to him about it.”

Rhaenys shuddered and suddenly looked sadder than Ellaria had ever seen her.

"What is it?" Ellaria asks, knowing she won’t like the answer.

"I never really know if it’s true but…but I’ve heard people say that long goodbyes are the worst—never knowing when it’s…when it’s real."

Ellaria stares at Elia, and thinks of the letters that Dorea had sent her about Robert Arryn.  ”They are incomparable,” she says sternly.  ”They are both horrible.  Both—” she looks at Oberyn and his ragged half-beard and she wants to cry, because whether sudden or slow, he would never be prepared to lose his sister.

* * *

Viserys narrows his eyes, and Dayne doesn’t react.  He doesn’t like that.  He wants Dayne to react.  ”Right, and you knew I needed a roommate…how, precisely?”  

"Arianne mentioned it," he says, shrugging.  "Said you needed someone to help with the rent."

That wasn’t quite true.  He  _could_  pay the rent all on his own.  And even if he couldn’t, mother would help him.  But it would be  _nice_  to split it.  He had hoped to split the flat with Rhaenys, but it seems that Arianne had caught wind of that one.  

He hates her sometimes.  Well and truly hates her—her and her meddling—

"This it, then?" Dayne asks.  "No secret anythings?"

"It’s a muggle building, so no.  I haven’t expanded it," Viserys replies peevishly.  

"I suppose it’ll do for two people," shrugs Dayne.  "So.  You’ll take me, then?"

* * *

It takes Brienne a moment to realize that the Minister of Magic is standing over her, looking very grim.   _He always looks grim_ , Brienne thinks.  She can’t think of a single time when she’s seen Tywin Lannister smile, much less look relaxed.  The man seems to be a constant knot of tension.

Realizing she’s still sitting, she stands.  ”Minister,” she says quickly.  ”How can I help you?”

"Where is my son?" he asks her.

"I don’t know, sir," she says.  "He stepped out."

"Stepped out?  At this hour of the night?"  It’s past midnight now, and Brienne flinches.  She could have sworn he’d be coming back.

"He does that sometimes.  Goes for a quick walk to clear his head, or a coffee with your daughter."

Lannister raises his eyebrows.  ”Cersei doesn’t drink coffee.”  It is a statement, a rebuke, and Brienne flinches.  That’s what Jaime always tells her, grabbing his traveling cloak and making noise about some muggle coffee shop around the corner from the visitor’s entrance.  

"Well, I…I don’t know where he is," Brienne says.

Lannister’s eyes narrow.  ”What’s your name?” he asks her.

"Brienne Tarth, sir."

"And who are you?"

"I’m Jaime—Auror Lannister’s mentee."

The Minister’s eyes stay narrowed as he turns away.  ”Well, when he returns, tell him I need him.”

"Yes sir."

And it’s far longer than it should be after he’s gone that she realizes she’s still standing, and sits back down.

* * *

She can’t breathe—can’t breathe at all.  She’s dreaming, she has to be.  That’s the only way—the only way that she had just heard the words that Ned had just—

And yet she feels her breath too acutely, feels how her skin goes from cool to hot to cool again as she stares at him.

"Cat," he says slowly, rising to his feet.

"Lyanna’s…" she breathes and her eyes snap to Jon’s for a moment and she wants to sink to the floor and cry because—because—

"He’s—you’re—Lyanna’s son," Ned was saying, and Jon’s eyes turn back to his, but Cat doesn’t look at Ned, she can’t look at Ned right now.  She stares at Jon as though only really seeing him for the first time, as though she had never known the boy who had slept in Robb’s room for so many years, and who had been sorted into Slytherin, and who had always wanted to go into law enforcement, and who could always make Arya smile, or be polite, or—

"Who’s my father then?" Jon’s voice is harsh, and she sees anger in the tight muscles of his neck.  

Ned doesn’t say anything, and Cat hears him swallow, and part of her wants to look at him, but she can’t, she can’t, she  _can’t_  because he had  _lied_  and she’d—she’d…

Jon was her nephew.  Not Ned’s son, which meant she’d…

She could cry.

* * *

"She…she died having you," he says.  Of all the ways he had imagined this conversation going, this had never been one of them.  Usually he’d envisioned them all sitting at dinner, with tea, and him carefully navigating the conversation, but now—now everything is out of control and he can’t bear the way they are looking at him.  Worse—he can’t blame them either.  "She died giving birth to you.  It was during the war, and everything was happening so fast, and we were worried bringing her to a healer would…" He can see Jon’s frown deepening, and knows he’s going to ask again, so he heads him off.  "She never said who your father was, but…but we guessed."  Jon raises his eyebrows and crosses his arm, and Ned gulps.  "Targaryen.  Rhaegar Targaryen."

Jon begins to laugh a humorless laugh, a laugh that might sound more like he was crying if his face weren’t dry.  He gets sharply to his feet.  

"Well," he says and his voice is like ice.  "This is exactly how I imagined the evening going."  He crosses towards the door, swinging his travelling cloak over his shoulder, brushing past Cat who is still staring at him with a look of confused horror on her face.

"Jon—" Ned calls after him, but Jon cuts him off.

"I’ll be going.  Long day at work tomorrow,  _Uncle Ned_.”  And he’s gone and Ned would run after him except Cat’s eyes are finally on his own and they are bright—so bright, so pained.

"Cat," he breathes, but she holds up a hand and shakes her head.  "Cat, please."

"You’re sleeping in the living room tonight," she says quietly.  "And maybe tomorrow night as well."  And she turns on her heel and follows Jon out of the kitchen.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jon, Catelyn, Ned, Elia, Ellaria, Oberyn, Ramsay, Allyria, Podrick, Brienne, Theon, Robb, Barbrey, Tyrion, Petyr, Lysa, Edmure, Roslin, Walda, Rhaenys, Grenn, Pyp, Sansa, Edric, Jaime, Stannis, Asha, Jorah, Davos, Shireen, Myrcella, Arya, Bran, Rickon, Weasel, Jeyne

Jon has never thought of himself as an angry person.  Not that he doesn’t have anger in him—no, he’s definitely been angry.  But someone who is wholly definied by anger?  No.  When he  _is_  angry, he takes a moment to calm down, and then he goes about his day.

Handling his shit, you could call it.

But he doesn’t even pretend to handle his shit as he hurls his way into his flat past midnight.  He throws open the door to his refrigerator and finds a bottle of beer, open it, downs the whole thing in one, and chucks it into the sink where it shatters.  He grabs another, then slams the door of the fridge closed.  

A family photograph falls loose from one of the magnets he’d used to stick it to the refrigerator, fluttering towards the door.  It’s the one of him and Robb and  _Uncle Ned_ , smiling and laughing at Arya’s first quidditch game.  It lands on the floor face down, and Jon doesn’t even touch it.  He finishes his beer, throws the second bottle into the sink—this one doesn’t shatter, though it makes a loud clanging noise—then stands there staring at the blank back of the photograph.

* * *

She hasn’t cried like this ever in her life.  It’s not the tears of grief she had seen Lysa cry over Robert, or the tears she’d wept when they had buried her father, or even the one’s she’d wept into Ned’s shirt as they had waited to see if Bran would live.

These hardly feel like tears at all.  Tears are supposed to be…supposed to be…anything but this.  This felt like panic, like her body was revolting against every semblance of reason she’d ever had, as though she were, and always had been…

He’d lived in her home for years and she’d never once…she’d…she hadn’t read his reports from school, or asked him about his classes, or his work, or his friends.  She had “forgotten to invite” him to more dinners than she could count since he had moved out.  (How easy a lie it had been, too—“He owled to say he was busy” and none of them had questioned her—not Robb, not Ned—only Arya once, and she’d put that to rest quickly enough.)  She’d never once even given him a birthday present.  

She—she had never been a mother to him.  She had never felt the need to be a mother to him.  He wasn’t her son.  He  _wasn’t_.  He was something of Ned’s, proof of Ned’s infidelity, proof of his goodness—but what responsibility did she have to—

When had he stopped asking her for seconds at dinner?  He had all the time when he’d been little, and she’d always pursed her lips.  When had he stopped?  She’d made him stop, hadn’t she?  Without a word?

And she sobbed, and sobbed, and sobbed, because the worst part of it wasn’t even the lie—though she didn’t know  _when_  she’d be able to look Ned in the face again, or if she could, no matter  _how_  much she wished he had his arms around her right now, his hands in his hair, whispering comforting words to her as she cried herself to sleep.  The worst part of it was that she didn’t even cry for Jon now.  She cried for herself.  Because she’d always been cruel, hadn’t she?  Always been selfish?  And she was crying for that as much as all the rest.

For the first time in years, Ned dreams of Lyanna that night.  Dreams of her—not as he did after Arya had knocked out both of her front teeth when she’d been seven and had wandered around with a gaping hole in her mouth the way that Lyanna had at that age—but dreams of her as he had during the months after he’d brought Jon home.

He dreams of her dying, her skin pale and waxen, her eyes glossy with fever, her hair and shirt damp with sweat as she begs him, pleads—

"Promise me, Ned."

"I will," he breathes.

"Promise me, Ned.  You must never tell. Robert will—"

"Robert wouldn’t in the end," he tells Lyanna in his dreams.  "Robert couldn’t have.  It was Tywin Lannister to be most afraid of in the end."

"Promise me, Ned."

"I kept my promise, Lya.  I kept it.  I did."

"Promise me, Ned."

"Father?" 

And there’s Jon—Jon, not as he had been when he’d fled the kitchen, but Jon as he had been when four and had had a nightmare but had been too scared to come into his and Cat’s room.  

"Father, why did you lie to me?"

And he stares at Ned with grey eyes—eyes like his, eyes like Lyanna’s, and Ned can’t answer, can’t answer at all because there’s something in his mouth, something hard and cold and he tries to cough it up, but he can’t, he can’t , he can’t.

* * *

 

She wakes as if from a dream and for the first time in ages she does not ache.  Not even the mild ache that is always with her, the one between her bones and her flesh, that she’s known since she was a little girl.  

She wakes and feels almost like she’s floating on air, almost like she’s shining so hale does she feel.

And when she opens her eyes, she isn’t in St. Mungo’s anymore.  She’s lying in the sand by the beach, and the sand is a brighter white than anything she’d ever seen, and the sea does not crash.  Waves hold still, mid crash, and it looks as though it’s made of glass.  

And the sense of peace fades—fades because she knows what has happened, knows it for dread fills her, and her heart does not stop.  It already has.

Everyone always talks of how heavy the silence is.  

Silence isn’t heavy—it’s the  _lack_  of silence that is.  The way your breath pulls in and out of your body, the way the clock ticks, the way a car backfires on the road, the way Ellaria can still hear the odd broken sob from the bedroom.  It’s the next-to-silence that’s heavy.

She wants to go in, wants to curl herself around him as he weeps, but she cannot.  Doran had given her a serious look when he’d arrived, and she had retreated, knowing that when he left, Oberyn would need her—need her now as he had never needed her before.

So she sits in the not-quite-silence, sometimes hearing Doran’s gentle murmur through her bedroom door.  And when she cannot bear just  _sitting_ there anymore, she summons a quill, and ink, and parchment, and begins to write,

_My darling girls, I write you with awful news._

_Your aunt has passed._

* * *

If there’s one thing he’s learned over the years, it’s that people will find any excuse to put you down, hold you back, keep you from doing what they don’t want you to do.  

_Don’t hurt people, Ramsay.  Only monsters hurt people._

_Don’t listen to them, Ramsay.  They’re not like_ us _._

 _Don’t do that, Ramsay.  It’s stupid_.

No—they’re the ones who are stupid.  They’re the ones who don’t understand, who think that humanity is perfect and flawless and blameless, that there isn’t anything ugly in the world if you just don’t talk about it, if you just lock it up in a sarcophagus and bury it in the egyptian sand.  They don’t like looking at it—the ugly things that aren’t “all right,” that don’t “fit in” with whatever it is they think is…natural.

That’s the human condition, though, isn’t it?  Pretending that everything that doesn’t match up with you is wrong?  

So what does it matter, then, that he’s killed his brother, and that he’s going to get his Reek back.  They don’t understand, so he doesn’t care what they think, and they can go fuck themselves.

The thought makes him smile.  He’s only human, after all.  Not so different from them, after all.

* * *

It had taken just about every ounce of cajoling and wheedling to convince Beric that—one, she wasn’t trying to get him to give Ned good grades and—two, she wouldn’t tell anyone that could get him into trouble and —three, she actually  _did_  mean it, yes.

What she  _hasn’t_  anticipated, when Beric arrives at hers on a Saturday night, sporting a bottle of Ogden’s Old and suggesting a tiny muggle restaurant in Soho, is Arthur dropping in on her while Beric waits her for her to change out of her overtly-witchy clothing.  

Why was it that everyone was always so in awe of Arthur?  Why was it that every man she dated somehow ended up tripping over his tongue and doing his best to prove that he’ll be good and chivalrous to Arthur’s baby sister.  Worse—they mean it too.  When was the last time that Allyria had actually dated someone who shagged her well on the first date?

Beric, at least, isn’t babbling, though he  _is_  flushed a little red as he describes what it’s like to actually  _teach_  at Hogwarts, and when Allyria glares at her brother, and practically drags Beric out the door, she can’t help but wonder, from the way that Arthur’s eyes are dancing, if he doesn’t do this on purpose.

* * *

_Dear Podrick,_

_You will be pleased: I officially have a mentor.  I should have written about it before now, but I haven’t had the chance just yet.  Once my mentorship got started, I suddenly had a lot to do—especially since…well, I shouldn’t say.  No.  No I will—he needs a lot of handling.  I mean he’s very good.  And I’m really lucky to be his mentee, but sometimes he’s just…_

_It’s Jaime Lannister.  I don’t really know how that happened, and I know I should be more pleased with it than I am, but he’s really quite rude a lot of the time, and I have to do most of his paperwork while he’s off having lunch with his sister.  It could be worse—his cases are **very**  interesting, but all the same…_

_I am learning a lot.  And it’s nicer working here than it was over at security.  That said, it’s not…well it’s still hard—making friends.  But it’s better.  I think.  Slower going than I would like._

_How’s your last year going?  Hope that you’re not worrying too hard about your NEWTs.  You’ll be fine with them.  Not enough people say that, and you will be._

_Chin up, and see you at Christmas, yeah?_

_Brienne_

* * *

 

"What’s going on?" He hears the sound of Robb’s footprints coming down the hallway as Asha says,

"He won’t come out of his room.  And whenever I go in he starts moaning .  Do you have any idea what the—"

"No, he hasn’t told me anything at all."  Robb cuts her off, his voice curt, and Theon feels hot shame twisting in his stomach.  He should have told them—he should have, but—and there’s a knock on the door.  He doesn’t reply.

"Theon?"

 _You have to remember your name_.  Maybe if the note hadn’t been written in blood.

After a moment, Robb opens the door, and comes in, Asha hanging onto the doorframe, watching them.

"What’s going on," Robb murmurs, resting his hand on Theon’s shoulder.  Theon cringes away from his touch.  "Theon?"

Theon shudders and points to the letter on the bedstand and Robb reaches for it.  ”Is that…blood?”

* * *

Everyone acts like Tyrion Lannister is  _so good_  for the  _school_.  How fantastic—having someone who is  _intelligent_  as well as capable running the place.  How splendid, a  _Lannister_ , so they might be able to get the Minister’s ear when discussing some necessary test reform.  How  _good,_ having a Slytherin headmaster again for the first time since before the war.

Barbrey doesn’t like it.  She doesn’t like  _him_ , more specifically.  He’s always smiling, and joking, and waddling about making the students  _like_  him, as though the students  _liking_  him is more important than his job.  He had  _cut_  one of her NEWT hours for Seventh Years a month before school had started.  What on  _earth_  was she supposed to do to prepare them?  She certainly wouldn’t be paid  _extra_  to meet with them for remedial lessons, and Merlin knows that some of them need it.  

And when she’d tried to convince him  _not_  to cut it, he’d simply stared at her with his bleeding mismatched eyes and said, “I am quite sure the students will make due.”  Make  _due_.  As though she didn’t have a reputation to maintain.  As though she would accept a  _single one_  of her students getting less than an Exceeds Expectations in their lessons.

No, she didn’t like him.  And she had half a mind to try and find a way to get him fired.

* * *

She awakens feeling cold, and a little bit ill—not the sort of ill that hits your stomach because you ate something funny, but the sort of ill that feels like t he world is pressing down entirely on your head.  She twists in the bed to find Ned’s hand before remembering that Ned is still sleeping on the couch.  

Of course she feels like the world is pressing down entirely on her head.  She could cry.  

They haven’t told the children.  Not even Robb.  She didn’t know how to.  It was  _Ned’s_ job to tell them, really, and it was one he’d failed phenomenally at thus far.  What would the news do to Robb—and Arya, who had always been so close to Jon?

She wants to write to him.  She does.  But the three times she’s sat down to put quill to parchment, she hasn’t been able to find the words that she really wants to say.   _I’m sorry,_ she wants to say—but she can’t write that, she needs to  _say_ it, maybe over a very big dinner with lots of butter buiscuits because Jon had always liked butter buiscuits.   _I’m angry too_ , she wants to say, though she is quite sure that the nature of that rage is different.  Anger at Ned…it can’t be the same anger for both of them.  It can’t be.   _I don’t know what to say_ , she begins the third, then stops, because she knows that such a letter might help nothing, might seem self-serving, or—or—she doesn’t know.

So instead, she curls up in her bed, calls sick to work, and lets the world crush down on her head for one more day.

* * *

He’s surprised that it takes him so long for Cat to write him.  He had expected her to ask him news of Lysa far sooner than she did, but he supposes later is better than not at all.

Of course, when he opens the owl, it’s not about Lysa at all—it’s about Ned, and never has Petyr been happier to find such news of Ned in one of Catelyn’s letters.  This is not the Ned of dinner a few weeks prior, the loving and perfect husband .  This is a liar.  

And he couldn’t be happier.  

 _You see, Cat?  He’s not that much better than everyone else_ , Petyr thinks, and he stores the letter in a box on his desk and locks it to reread later.

* * *

Petyr thinks she should calm down some, but he clearly doesn’t know anything of grief, true grief, the sort of grief that comes from losing everything you ever had.

Someone took him from her—her little boy, her precious boy, her only boy, and how can there be goodness in the world if Robert was taken from her?  It fills her with a fury because she was supposed to have everything too, she was supposed to have a loving husband and a loving family, but all she had was Jon and his distance and Robert, and now Robert’s gone.

Petyr doesn’t know what it’s like to lose someone.  She hopes he never does.  But if he never does, then he’ll be like Cat—he’ll have everything, and she doesn’t want him to be like Cat, because if he’s like Cat then he won’t be hers anymore, and she can’t bear to lose him too, and she’ll hurt anyone who tries to take him from her the way they took Robert from her.

* * *

"Edmure," Roslin’s voice rings after him and he pauses, still fuming.  "Edmure, she didn’t mean it."

"I certainly did," cackled Walda.  "I know what you’e told me, Roslin."

He sees Roslin glare daggers at her sister before crossing to him and taking his hands in each of hers.  ”Please—it’s not like that.”

"It  _is_ ,” calls Walda.

"Go  _away,_ Walda!” Roslin shrieks, and for the first time since they’d begun dating, she sounds a little like Lysa, and her eyes are brown and wide and her grip on his hands is hard.  ”Look, it’s—it’s not easy, and…”

"If you weren’t enjoying it, you could have told me," he says through gritted teeth.

"I know," Roslin whimpers.  "I do.  I was working on that.  I’ve never been very good at…at telling…yeah."  She stands on the tips of her toes and kisses his cheek.  "Please don’t be mad at me."

Edmure sighs and forces a smile.  ”I’m not going back in there, though.”  He did not doubt that Roslin’s horrible father was making fun of him even as they spoke.

"No," she says quickly.  "No.  Let’s…let’s get out of here," and he nods and extracts his hand from hers to grab his travelling cloak.

"Make her cum this time, will you?"

“ _WALDA!”_

* * *

Everything fell apart, just like he had always feared it would.  Ever since she’d made him promise, he’d been scared that that promise would break everything he’d ever built, and Ned doesn’t particularly like being right about that.  He really hates being right about that, actually.  

He sighs.  

When he’d been little, his father had always told him that if you break a thing, it’s your responsability to fix it.  And before he’d even been allowed to use magic, his father had always made sure he had glue, or tools to break things.  He hadn’t understood it then, and had grumbled, but there are some things that magic can’t fix.  He can’t magically make everything be happy and perfect the way it once was.  He can’t wish upon a star and make things work.

His father raised him to be a braver man than that.  The only time you can be brave is when you’re scared, his father had always said, and Merlin is he scared now.  But he won’t be able to live with himself if he does nothing and if that means rolling up his sleeves and trying, well…he’ll try then.

He’ll try for himself, sure, but that’s less important.  He’ll try for Cat—he’ll try for Jon.

* * *

Rhaenys misses her mother. 

That’s the simple fact of it.  She misses her mother, misses her like there’s this great weight hanging over her.  She’ll never hear her mother’s voice again, only see her smile in photographs where she stands a little apart from her father, and waves excitedly at Rhaenys.  If Rhaenys is in the photograph too, maybe her mother will hug her, and kiss her, as if that hug and kiss will pass through the glossy paper and make it as though she had never died, as though she’s standing in the room with Rhaenys now and is hugging and kissing her for real.

So Rhaenys doesn’t look at photographs of her mother, because her mother isn’t with her.  She looks at her hands, or looks in an upper corner of the frame, and bites back tears.  She thinks reaches out to hold Aegon’s hand, or Viserys’, and maybe even father’s because they’re the ones who can make her feel less like her mother is gone. 

But her mother is gone, and she’s never coming back, and there will never be a day where Rhaenys doesn’t miss her.

* * *

“What’s got you in a snit?” Grenn barks, and Pyp looks up from his cubicle to see him glaring at Jon.  “You’ve been in a right mood for ages now.  What’s gotten into you?”

“Lower your voice,” Jon says so quietly that Pyp can barely hear it, but his tone is enough to make Pyp truly nervous.  Usually when Grenn blows up, Jon rolls his eyes and snarks him into submission, but this—this is different.  This sounds like a storm, and Pyp gets to his feet, not sure if he’ll need to intercede.

He doesn’t.  Grenn’s jaw has dropped and he raises his hands as if trying to show he didn’t mean to cross whatever line he’s just crossed.

“Jon,” Pyp says quietly.  “Jon, what’s going on?”

Jon’s eyes flicker between the two of them, and his face twists in some sort of angry sadness.  He jerks his head towards his desk and they follow him over, and, even more quietly than before, Jon whispers to them.  “I’m…My dad’s not…my dad’s not my dad.  I’m…” he shudders, and shakes his head.

“Jon?”

But Jon doesn’t say anything else.  He just sits down in his chair and opens a case file and begins double-checking his paperwork in silence.

* * *

“Knut for your thoughts.”  Sansa’s head jerks up from her Charms paper, then casts a nervous glance over at Professor Dustin.  Professor Dustin doesn’t look for excuses to berate her these days, and they are supposed to be working silently.  Not, of course, that that doesn’t mean there aren’t hushed voices filling the room, as students ask one another questions.

Ned’s head is inclined towards hers, and his characteristic, cheery smile has faded and there’s something serious in his blue eyes.  She doesn’t know if she’s ever seen him look quite this serious before, except when…except when she’d gone to visit Robert that time.      

She purses her lips and notices her hands shaking as she dips her quill into the inkpot.

“I’m all right,” she says.  “Really, I am.  I am.”  She is.  She’s sure she’s fine.  Sure that everything’s all right.  Things are different now, of course, without Robert.  But…

“Right,” Ned says, and he looks like he doesn’t believe her.  “You keep saying that, but if you want to talk, I’m here.” 

He reaches over and dips his quill in her inkpot, then turns back to his Charms project, his face still tilted towards her and when she goes back to work, she wonders if he’s not watching her.

* * *

“It’s a knife,” Brienne says, staring at it.  It’s a nice knife, with a lion-head on the end of the grip, and shining and silvery.

“So it seems,” Jaime responds relaxedly.  He turns to Darry.  “Now, Mr. Darry, where did you come by this knife?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” asks Darry, his eyes narrowing.  His eyes are narrowing and Brienne keeps an eye on his wand hand which is resting on a twitching knee.

“I’m the one answering the questions, Darry,” says Jaime.

“You’re a blood traitor,” spits Darry.

“Ah yes.  So I am.  But that’s hardly relevant.  I’d like you to tell me where you got this knife.”

“And I said—”

“Because, to me, it is a very nice knife, but you see,” and Jaime waves his wand lazily over the knife and it glows a rather violent shade of orange, “cursed.  Very cursed.  Profoundly cursed.   _Illegally_  cursed.  So you can either tell me where you got it, or I can keep you here on charges of aiding and abetting the transport of illegal weaponry.  How does that sound?”

Darry’s eyes are dark, and Brienne stares at Jaime in wonder.  How had he seen that?  How had he known?  She never would have guessed—she might even have touched the thing, might even have gotten herself cursed.   _He really is good, isn’t he?  It’s not just his father.  It’s him_ , she thinks as Darry shifts uncomfortably in his seat and opens his mouth to confess.

* * *

“Right, so the way I see it, that tea-kettle was a time-bomb waiting to go off, and that’s at  _least_  a fine, if not formal charges,” Stannis says, making note on his notepad and glancing up at Greyjoy.  Her feet were resting on the desk again, and she was eating an apple noisily.  “Any opposition?”

“None,” Greyjoy agrees, and some spittle and apple juice dribbles down her jaw.  “Oh bollocks,” she mutters and wipes it away with the sleeve of her robe.  “Merlin, I’m worse than Theon sometimes.”

Stannis has no idea who Theon is, and isn’t sure he wants to know, so he brings up the next charge.

“Right—magic carpets.   _Illegally imported_  magic carpets, I might add,” he says, as if to remind her that Magic Carpets are embargoed.  Davos had had some confiscated just this past week.  Greyjoy doesn’t seem to take note of the clarification, and he’s sure she’s laughing at him for thinking she’s forgotten about the embargo.  “Four sold to a muggle shopkeeper up in Glasgow.”

“That’s not our department,” Greyjoy says calmly.

“It’s—”

“Misuse of Muggle Artifacts should have that case, not us.  That’s not accidental magic, or improper use at all.  That’s misuse.  And it’s a tricky one, according to the by-law of two thousand and one that states that so long as they are imports, and not domestic creations, they fall into your mate Seaworth’s division.  That’s  _not_ you, or me, much less you and me.  So you can move onto the next one.”

Stannis gapes at her, and she takes another bite of her apple.

“What?” she demands.  “You know I’m right.”

She is.  Damn her.  Damn her and her ridiculous memory for detail.  And, worse, why hadn’t he thought of that? He moves the file to a new pile and pulls up the next case file.

* * *

He wishes he got a little more credit sometimes—a little more credit for being good at his job, for being constantly prepared, for understanding what needed to be done and doing it, for always doing the thing that no one else wanted to be doing. 

He doesn’t though—not nearly enough, he thinks.  No credit at all for trying to fix Lynette’s spending problems, none for giving his dad the family sword—owned by some of the first Mormonts back in the twelve-hundred, goblin made and with a great black bear on the pommel—back before he made his way out to Romania for the new job.  No credit at all.

When hasn’t he given his all?  And no one seemed to think much of it until he came out here.  Grey Worm gives him a sort of quiet deference, and Missandei always corrects him when he confuses dragon breeds—somehow the little girl just knows more about dragon breeds than adults he’s met—and Dany…Dany recognizes the best in him more than anyone’s ever done before.

He tried to kiss her once. 

He’d tried to tell her how much she meant to him.  But she’d backed away and shaken her head and looked away.

That seemed to be all he ever got from people—backing away and shaking their head because the things he cared about most in the world were things that somehow didn’t accept him.

* * *

“You think I’m being cruel then?” Stannis asks him, and Davos sighs.

“No—not cruel.  Just…”

“Harsh.”

“I was going to go with inflexible, but harsh if you like.”

They have both finished their lunches, and Davos is contemplating whether or not he should just shut up and get back to work.

“Florent is incompetent, and I’ve kept him around longer than he deserves,” Stannis says.  “He also is bloody difficult to work with, though that is an entirely different matter.”

Davos huffs and shifts in his seat.  “He’s also married with children, Stannis.  He’s his family’s breadwinner.”

“He’ll get another job.  It’s not my responsibility to keep him around if he’s incompetent.  My office is not a charity organization.”

“Of course not,” sighs Davos. 

* * *

Petyr has a gentle expression on his face, and Catelyn can’t help but feel relief finding him waiting for her at the Leaky Cauldron.  He gets to his feet quickly and gives her a bone crushing hug.

“Tell me everything,” he says into her ear, and she pulls away, shrugs out of her travelling cloak, and sits down opposite him, pulling a menu towards her. 

Catelyn stares at the words on the page for a moment, not really taking them in at all.  Then she says, “He lied to me, Petyr.  For years and years and years.  He didn’t say a single damn word to me, and he let me treat Jon the way I did.  He never once…never once…” her hands begin to shake and she puts the menu down.  “I’m a good mother.”

“I know that,” Petyr says quickly, reaching over and giving her hands a squeeze.  His palms are a bit clammy.  “You are a very good mother.  You and Lysa both.”

“I am a good mother,” she repeats, “and he let me…Merlin.  I need a drink.” She casts a glance over at old Tom behind the bar.

“It’s not your fault,” Petyr says calmly.  “It’s Ned’s.  He let you mistreat the boy.”

 _Mistreat_ , Cat thinks.   _That’s the kind word for it._

She still hasn’t written to Jon.

“It is my fault,” she says vehemently.  “It is.  I did it.  And I can’t fix it.”

“But Ned let you,” Petyr repeats.

“Ned lied to me,” she says and she feels cold, suddenly, and feels tears prick at her eyes.  “He lied to me, Petyr.  And I’m so mad at him I could spit venom, but it  _hurts_.   _So much_.  He lied to me, he lied to our children, he lied to Jon.  The man I love is a liar.”

Petyr shifts in his seat and his face is unreadable now.  “No man is purely a saint.  No man is purely a sinner either.  And Ned pretended to be one while being the other.”

Tom brings over firewhisky and Catelyn downs hers in one.  She looks over at Petyr.  “You’ve never lied to me, have you?  You’re like a brother to me.  You’ve never…”

“Oh.  Never, Catelyn.  Never.”

* * *

Robb’s never hated anyone—not truly.  Well, that’s not true.  He hates Joffrey for what he put Sansa through.  And hates anyone related to Joffrey by extension.  But there’s always his father’s voice in his head reminding him that people are only human.  “Never forget people’s humanity, Robb,” his father had always said, “dehumanizing your enemy just because you don’t like them is the single most horrific thing you can do.  It makes you less a man yourself.”

So Robb tries to remember that people are only human.  He tries to remember that whoever is an ass around him, or whoever does something stupid, something mean, they’re still a person.

But he sees red when he thinks about what happened to Theon—what that _fucking bastard_  did to Theon.  Theon, who’d always been cocky and confident, brave and smart and funny, reduced to a trembling, terrified—Theon didn’t even think of himself as a human anymore, sometimes.  That’s what he’d said.  “When I’m Reek, I’m  _Reek_.  I’m not a man anymore, Robb.  I’m a  _Reek_.”

People are only human, he reminds himself, but that—that  _man_ , is the most vile creature, the most evil thing, the biggest creep that Robb has ever encountered, and Robb has never actually encountered him.

 _I’d better not_ , Robb thinks.   _I’d better not.  I’ll kill him if I do._

* * *

 _They know now, at least_ , he thinks.  Grenn and Pyp and Edd, and even Sam who had written to him and invited him up for the weekend.   _Come get a breath of fresh air.  It’ll do you good to get out of the city._

It’s nice to know that his friends don’t see him any differently.  He’s not surprised by that.  Friends are friends, and they accept you no matter what.  They don’t give a damn about your family, or where you come from, so much as whatever it was that made you friends in the first place. 

Robb hasn’t been in touch at all, and Jon’s sure—though he’s heard nothing from either his  _uncle_  or his aunt—that his…his…

Fuck they’re his cousins, aren’t they?  They were never full-on siblings to begin with, and now they’re even further away, aren’t they?  He wasn’t allowed to throw his arm over Robb’s shoulder and nudge him the way that brothers do, or write to Rickon and say, “chin up, you’re making your Slytherin big brother proud” or muss Arya’s hair and call her little sister. 

Little cousin didn’t have the same ring to it.

They don’t know.  They don’t know at all—and he hates it, hates everything.  He can’t even focus on work.  He feels ill all the time—ill, and angry, and empty, and  _lonely_  because at least before, he had people on his team. 

 _Maybe I should write one of the Targaryens_ , he thinks for a moment, before he stops.  They don’t want to hear from him now.  Rhaegar Targ…is he supposed to call him father now?  Fuck.  Elia Martell had just died.  They didn’t need one of Targaryen’s by-blows from the war popping up and fucking up their dynamic. 

_Come get a breath of fresh air.  It’ll do you good._

Yes—it would do him good.  He should see Sam.  And besides, Arya’s first quidditch match was that weekend.  He could go and see her play.  He…

He pauses, then smiles.   _I’ll tell them.  I’ll be the one.  Not dad.  I will.  They’ll hear it from me first._  

And he owls Sam.

* * *

It’s been a long time since Myrcella has had one of her dreams.  A long time.  But Shireen jerks awake near four in the morning to the sound of thick tears coming from across the dormitory and she climbs out of bed, hoping that she’s the first one awake and that the others haven’t heard.  Myrcella doesn’t like it when anyone knows.  She can barely tolerate that Shireen does. 

Shireen prods her cousin’s shoulder with two fingers, firmly but not painfully and a moment later Myrcella jerks awake, her green eyes wide and black in the dark. 

“Just a dream,” Shireen murmurs.  “It’s just a dream.  You’re all right.” 

She sits with her for a time, running her hand over Myrcella’s back until she falls asleep again, wishing here was more she could do, and knowing there isn’t.

* * *

“Jon’s coming up! Jon’s coming up! Jon’s coming up!” Arya chants happily and slides onto the bench next to Bran at the Ravenclaw table. 

“He is?” Bran says, feeling a smile cross his face.

“Yep!  He wrote this morning,” Arya says and she digs the crumpled letter out of her school bag and reads aloud.  “Dear Arya, hoping you’re well.  Things are shite down here in London right now and I’m popping up to visit Sam for a few days and—of course—to see you lot.  So get your homework done in advance because I’ll want time with you, and make sure the others know to as well.  Also, though it does cause me great personal grief, I shall be cheering on Gryffindor at this weekend’s match.  It is entirely your fault, by the way, so if you lose, I will be very angry with you and promptly pretend I was cheering Slytherin the entire time.  Looking forward, Jon.”

Bran frowns, and Arya glances at him, cocking her head. “What’s the frown?” she asks.

“I…I dunno.  It sounded very jovial for things being shite, didn’t it?” Bran says.

Arya rolls her eyes at him.  “Don’t be stupid.  I’m sure he’s fine.  Like he said, he’s just visiting Sam.”

Bran remains unconvinced, but Arya’s standing again.  “Off to tell Rickon.  He should cheer Gryffindor if Jon is.  He has no Slytherin allies now, does he?  Besides, you should all sit together.”

* * *

The stadium is packed, and Rickon has never felt more excited as he follows Jon, Sansa, and Bran to the front of the stadium.  Jon’s pushing Bran’s chair and talking loudly about feeling like he’s in enemy territory and Sansa keeps fiddling with her Gryffindor scarf, as though unsure if she wants to wrap it once or twice around her neck.  Rickon feels very small—also very self-conscious as he makes his way through the crowd in his very obvious green-and-silver colors.  He gets hissed at a few times, even though Bran, Jon, and Sansa, all shout “Oi!” at whoever does it.

He leans against the front barrier next to Sansa and stares out at the field.  He’s been to quidditch matches before, of course.  They went to the World Cup a few years back, and last year, when Gryffindor was playing in the finals against Ravenclaw, he and mum and dad had come up to watch Arya and Bran play.  He hadn’t felt strange cheering for Gryffindor then.  He does know, even though he shouldn’t, right?  Arya’s his sister.

“Hello,” says a voice.  “Anyone sitting here?” He turns around and sees Weasel from Potions smiling down at him. 

“No,” Rickon says, almost surprised, and she sits down next to him, smiling.

“I’ve never seen a match,” she confesses.  “My…my dad kept saying he’d take me, but he never got the chance.”

Rickon smiles at her.  “You’re in for a treat.  Arya’s really good.”

“I know,” Weasel grins at him.  “She’s amazing.  She’s taught me loads already. I want to try out for the team next year.”

“You should!” Rickon says happily, and a roar fills the stadium as the two teams walk onto the field and for a minute he forgets that he’s the only Slytherin because as one, all five of them—Jon, Bran, Sansa, Rickon, and Weasel—begin shouting Arya’s name and jumping up and down and waving at her.

* * *

Whatever Arya had said, something is definitely off with Jon.  He can feel it.  Jon hardly seems to be watching the game at all—his cheers are belated, even though he’d played quidditch himself and undoubtedly knew the signs of goals about to be scored, or bludgers about to be hit.  Jon’s barely smiling, barely saying a thing and whenever he catches Bran watching him, he puts on a show for another few minutes, until he thinks he’s appeased Bran.

Sansa hasn’t noticed a thing.  Whenever Arya’s not in the thick of things, Sansa’s eyes are on Ned Dayne,  and the way that he weaves through the Slytherin’s easily, passing the quaffle back and forth with Arya.

And Rickon—Rickon’s too far away, or maybe it’s because he’s got his head bent in discussion with Weasel, or maybe it’s just because Rickon’s young and doesn’t necessarily pick up on the “offness”, but something’s definitely off, and Bran doesn’t like it—doesn’t like it at all.

* * *

“Of course, Stilwood is a bloody awful Keeper.  I guess Slytherin was desperate when they let him onto the team,” Arya shrugs.  They’re sitting under a tree by the lake, and Arya’s got the contended, brighteyed look of someone who has just played a very vigorous game of quidditch and won soundly.

“Yeah—not great,” Jon says vaguely.  “Not great at all…”  He tries not to sound odd, tries to sound—

“What’s wrong?” Bran asks him, and he feels his mouth open in surprise. 

“Nothing’s wrong,” Arya says.  “He’s just confused because he’s glad Gryffindor won.”  But even as she says it, Jon sees her expression change, sees the way she’s watching him, and Bran and he steels himself.

“I…I found some stuff out.  A little while back,” he swallows.  “Some not very good stuff.  It’s just…hard to keep out of my head at the moment is all.”

“What is it?” Arya asks.  Everything about her demeanor is different now.  She looks very upset, as if the mere concept of Jon’s being unhappy about anything is enough to make her sad too.

“I…” he looks around at them, at Bran, and Rickon, and Sansa, all of them looking at him so expectantly.  It had been so easy telling Grenn and Pyp, but this—this was so different, this was worlds different.  And he knows he has to.  “Dad’s not my dad,” he blurts out.  “I’m Aunt Lyanna’s son.”

Somewhere across the lake, he hears the sounds of happy Gryffindors.  He hears the sound of the trees rustling in the wind, of the lapping of little waves against the shore, but he hears not a sound from the other four.

“So?” Arya says.  “You’re still my brother.”  And she gets up and sits down next to him and wraps her arms around his waist, nuzzling into him, and Jon scrunches up his face as he rubs her hair  because he hasn’t felt this close to crying yet.

“Well—cousin,” Sansa says and Jon feels Arya shift next to him.  Jon’s face flushes and he feels ill again.

“ _Brother,”_ she says fiercly.

“I mean—technically he’s our—”

“Oh, bloody hell, Sansa.  Don’t go into technicalities, will you?” Arya shouts. “What do they matter?”

“I just—” Sansa begins.

“No.  Stop it.  You don’t say that.  You don’t say that at all,” Arya repeats.  “If you think like that, you can bloody well leave.” Sansa stiffens, sitting up straight and taking a deep breath to answer but Arya opens her mouth again.  “ _You can bloody well leave.”_

And she does.  She gets to her feet, wraps her scarf around her and marches off back to the castle, her hands balled into fists.

* * *

“What was I supposed to have said?” she blubbers.  She hates that she’s crying.  She is seventeen years old and not a child anymore, and so  _what_  if Arya shouted at her?  She almost hates it as much as finding Ned on her way back up to Gryffindor tower with some of his friends and breaking away from them to find out what’s wrong.  She doesn’t know if she’s supposed to be telling anyone Jon’s secret, but she has this sense—she knows that Ned won’t tell anyone else.

Ned grimaces, and she knows what he’s going to say.  “Well, for one thing, you probably should have held your tongue,” he says.  “I mean—yeah, you’re right.  He is your cousin, not your brother. But…I can’t imagine that was fun for him to hear.”

Sansa feels her lip trembling.  “I should apologize to him,” she says.  “But that doesn’t make it any less true—he  _is_  our cousin.  Not our brother.”

“Don’t apologize until you know what you’re apologizing for,” Ned says quietly, and he reaches out and grips her shoulder and for some reason that almost soothes her.  “Don’t make it worse.  It’ll mean more to him if he knows you mean what you say, right?  And right now you’re…”

“Hysterical?  Go on.  Say it.  I’m being ridiculous.”

He doesn’t say anything though.  He just looks at her and for one wild moment she thinks he’s going to kiss her.

* * *

It’s a stupid reaction, really.  Stupid.  And she knows it.  But that doesn’t mean it’s not upsetting all the same.

She sees the way that they look at each other, when they don’t think the other is looking.  She sees the way that Ned watches Sansa in Charms, and the way that Sansa always seems to blush just a little bit when Ned talks to her. 

So she shouldn’t be surprised to find that Sansa goes to him when she’s upset about something.

Jeyne knows all too well what it looks like when Sansa’s crying.  Hadn’t she been the one Sansa had come to when Joffrey had been a right little shit?

But Sansa doesn’t come to her now.  Sansa went to him.  And that’s how Jeyne knows that that’s that.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Willas, Rhaenys, Petyr, Arya, Gendry, Robert, Ned, Catelyn, Jon, Sam, Viserys, Jojen, Aegon, Daenerys, Rhaegar, Arianne, Sansa, Edric, Gilly, Stannis, Davos, Benjen,

"Cigarette?" Willas asks her.  He’s leaning heavily on his cane, and when she doesn’t respond, he settles himself on the sofa next to her.  He lights a cigarette with the tip of his wand and places it between her fingers, before taking one out for himself.  Somewhere in the next room, she hears her uncles talking quietly with her father.  Part of her wonders what they are saying; part of her doesn’t want to know.

It’s been a long while since Rhaenys smoked, but the taste of tobacco on her tongue is soothing.  She stares out the window and breathes and listens to the sound of Willas exhaling smoke.

"You’ll be ok," Willas says.  "Doesn’t feel like it now, but you will be."

She takes another drag on the cigarette instead of telling him to bugger off, telling him that he can talk his mother’s fine.  But Rhaenys has never been very good at being argumentative, so instead she just smokes, and seethes, and hopes that he’s right.

* * *

It is growing more precarious.  Not unmanageable, just precarious.

Lysa watches him like a hawk most days.  She asks him what he’s thinking, where he’s going, what he wants to be doing.  And she’s easy to lie to, of course.  She’s always trusted him.  But nonetheless, it’s getting pecarious.  She’s getting paranoid.  And he doesn’t want her paranoid.  She’s too unpredictable when she’s paranoid.

She’s alway been jealous, Lysa.  Never the pretty one, never the clever one, never the quick one.  She doesn’t have the happy marriage with the five children, nor does she—did she—even have a healthy child.

If she’s paranoid she’ll ruin it.  She’ll question everything he’s told her, she might even begin looking in the brewery to see if anything had been mislabeled.  So he needs to be careful.  He needs to be very, very careful.

* * *

They are lying together by the lake, her head resting on Gendry’s arm.  She’s staring up at the sky, thinking how blue it is, how blue like his eyes it is.  It’s a stupid thought.  She has had it before.

He says something stupid.  She tells him it’s stupid.  He laughs and the arm under her head twists.  She turns to look at him.  They are very close—very close and his lips are very red and she wonders what it would be like to kiss him.

She’s never kissed anyone before.  She’s never really wanted to.  But she wants to kiss Gendry, and she thinks he wants to kiss her too because his eyes go all hooded and he leans closer to her and in that moment, she stops breathing and wakes up.

* * *

"And Cat’s well?" Robert asks, shoving his fork into a slice of steak.

"Well.  Yes, well," Ned replies.  He wonders if Robert can here the forced lightness in his tone the way he can.

"Good!  Good.  You two should comeround sometime soon.  Cersei’s been unbelievable since Joff started up working with her and any opportunity I can have to not sit through her prattling on about the office is just exactly what I need."

"I’ll check with Cat when I get home," Ned says, lightly again.

How will he ask?   _Cat, can we pretend to be happy for a night for Robert?  Can we just pretend like you didn’t learn about…Like I didn’t…_

"How are Myrcella and Tommen?" Ned asks, forcing himself not to worry about that just yet.  If he overthinks it now, he’ll botch it later.  He might botch it later anyway.  But at least then it wil feel natural, somehow.

* * *

"Robert wants us over for dinner sometime soon," Ned says quietly.  It is the first night that they’ve had dinner together, just the two of them, at the same time, since she’d overheard him.  She’d been out every other night, or claimed not to be hungry, or Robb had been over and they’d focused on him instead of them.  

Catelyn’s spoon pauses on her way to her mouth.  ”Did you tell him?” she asks, and her voice is hard.  

"I haven’t told anyone else." Ned feels his voice click.  

"I had a letter from Bran," Cat says.  "Jon told them this past weekend.  When he was up at the school."

Ned takes a deep breath, feeling the air swirling in his chest.  

"Bran wanted to know if I was all right," Cat continues.  "And I don’t know what to tell him."

Ned nods, but he feels his throat go dry.  ”I…I wouldn’t either,” he says.  

She glares at him.  ”Well, you should think of something, and soon.  To say to all of them, to say to me.”

* * *

Jon takes four vacation days and stays up in Hogsmeade for several days, even after Arya’s game was long over.  He wanders the village by day, or hangs around in the barroom pretending to read case files.  He could very easily go up to the school again and use that as some excuse to make some headway on the Robert Arryn case, but he can’t because he’s had to recuse himself already.  He’s  _family_.

 _Family_.  The word feels bitter in his mouth.  It’s not like Catelyn Stark was ever really his family.  He’d spent years in denial about that, and it had taken two ex-girlfriends and half of his school friends to point out to him that you shouldn’t dread going home for the holidays, even if you love your siblings.  He’d kept Edd from calling her his “wicked stepmother” mostly out of loyalty to his father, and now, of course, everything feels even worse.

He hasn’t heard from his father.  He’s decided he’s still going to think of him as father.  Why should that change?  Why should he go easy on him?  Just because he’d lied.  It was ok to have him lie because he was only “uncle Ned?” He was Jon’s father.  Jon doesn’t know Rhaegar Targaryen from the devil, but Ned Stark had always been there for him.  And  he hasn’t heard anything at all.  That probably hurts the most.  It definitely does, actually.  He’s used to Catelyn’s whatever it is at this point, but his father was always there to support him, no matter what and he hasn’t heard a word from him.

"Maybe he’s just trying to give you some space?" Sam suggests when the barmaid brings him his lunch.

"Maybe," Jon replies slowly.  He’s not sure he wants the space though.  If anything, he wants to curl up net to his father the way he did when he was six and have him tell him that everything’s all right, and that he’ll be ok.  But he’s not six anymore.  He’s a grown man, and so is Ned Stark and Ned Stark…Ned Stark hadn’t even stopped his wife treating his son like shit.

He shakes himself and glances around.  ”Sam, is the barmaid watching you?”  Sam blushes.  ”Sam—have you been holding out on me?”

"It’s nothing really.  Nothing."  But Jon sees a diversion and dives into it with an almost manic determination.

* * *

Mr. Tarly tells her that Jon is staying in the village a few extra days, and Arya doesn’t care that she’s got extra O.W.L. prep-work to do—that can wait.  She sneaks out of her dorm and makes her way down to the statue of the hump-backed witch and before long is hurrying her way to Hogsmeade.

"You are going to be in so much trouble," Jon sighs when she knocks on his door in the Three Broomsticks.  And Arya just shrugs.

"I’ve been in worse, and this is important.  Hang the rules.  They’re stupid anyway."  She pushes past him and sits down on his bed, watching him as he closes the door, then comes and flops down next to her, his face in the pillows.  "How long are you here, big brother?" she asks, and she runs her hands through his hair, the way he always did hers.  It’s greasy, and she wonders when he last showered.

"Till Friday," he says into the pillow.  

"Good," Arya says, and she snuggles into his side.  "That’s loads of time."

Jon lifts his arm and throws it over Arya’s back.  ”You’ll be banned from the village for the rest of the year if they catch you.”

"Then they better not catch me."  They won’t.  She knows they won’t.  She won’t let them.

* * *

"You have a roommate?" Rhaenys hisses so that Gerold can’t hear.  

Viserys grimaces.  ”Yeah.  I didn’t want it.  I mentioned it so it wouldn’t be weird if you wanted to…” 

"I know, I thought that was what…" she lets her sentence dangle.  She doesn’t need this right now—she really doesn’t.  Not so soon after her mother’s death.  She’d been looking forward to it, to loving with him and curling up next to him after long days at work and just having him be there, warm and supportive and there.

And now she can’t.  It’s one more thing she just can’t have.  Part of her wants to cry.

"How’d he hear about it?" she asks.

"Arianne," Viserys responds, not even bothering to keep the anger out of his voice.  And it hits her in the gut.  She’s always known that Arianne doesn’t like Viserys but this—this?  This hurts  _her_  more than him.  How could Arianne not see that?  

Unless…she’d always assumed that Arianne knows.  But maybe…maybe she doesn’t, and if Arianne doesn’t…maybe none of them do.

* * *

_Dear Meera,_

_The dreams haven’t go away.  I’m not sure what to make of them.  I asked dad, but he said that it’s probably just that I should have taken Divination when I started third year, but I don’t think that’s it.  From what I’ve been able to gather from Dev Seaworth it’s different from the sorts of dreams that happen for Divination.  Not, of course, that that means anything.  Divination seems largely dodgy, actually.  I’m glad I didn’t take it.  Waste of time.  Doesn’t it sort of defeat the purpose of knowing the future if you have to study it?  Reading signs seems like…I don’t know.  Shouldn’t you know them innately?_

_They’re still green.  That’s how I know that they’re **the dreams**  you know?  Like my normal ones that are like some sort of bad high are normal colored, but the ones about…about _ **_it_ ** _are always shades of green._

_You haven’t come across anything like this before, have you?  You or mum?  I don’t secretly have some sort of disease from the twelve hundreds do I?_

_Miss you lots.  Still have no idea what I am doing after school.  But I’m not worrying about that until NEWTs are over._

_Lots of love,_

_Jojen_

* * *

"I want to write to him," Jon mutters into the dark.  His candles have guttered out, and he  _knows_  Arya should be going back up to the school, that she’ll be in even worse trouble than usual if they find out she’s stayed  _overnight_  in Hogsmeade, but she’s still burrowed next to him wearing the old purply-grey jumper that Catelyn Stark had made her for Christmas last year.

"Hm?" Arya asks.

"My…my actual dad.  I want to write to him.  See….see if he knows about me."

He feels Arya shift onto her side next to him, and tilts his head towards hers.  He can just make out the outline of her face in the night-time light from the window.

"Are you sure that’s a good idea?" she asks carefully.

"No," he responds.  "But I don’t really think anything’s a good idea at this point.  So why not really turn the knife in the wound?"

"That…" Arya’s frowning he can hear it in her voice.  "That doesn’t seem healthy, Jon."

"What is, though?"

"I don’t know."  She burrows down next to him again, and with a pang, he thinks how lucky he is to have her.   _Little sister_ , he thinks sadly as he runs his fingers through her long dark hair.   _Loyal little sister._ _  
_

Arya at least—Arya’s on his side.  No matter what.

And with a jolt he realizes he doesn’t even  _know_  if Robb knows.

* * *

_Dany,_

_I need you to come home.  Like yesterday._

_I know you’re romping around with dragons, and I know that’s wildly fulfilling for you, and that your career is on the rise—but you need to take a vacation or a personal day or something._

_Fun fact: did you know dad had another kid?_

_Fun fact: did you know I have a brother?_

_Fun fact: did you know that that brother just wrote to dad, and grandmother’s gone all silent like she does when she’s furious?_

_Fun fact: haven’t heard from Rhaenys at all?  Or Viserys for that matter?_

_Please come back now._

_This brother is apparently coming around to tea soon and I do not know what to do because so help me god if I am the only one at this tea apart from father and grandmother I won’t be responsible for my actions._

_So yeah._

_Please leave Romania and come home for a bit._

_Many thanks in advance and glad to know you haven’t been eaten by a dragon yet,_

_Your agitated and anxious nephew Aegon_

* * *

It is when he’s sitting in Rhaegar Targaryen’s living room that it occurs to him that Arya was definitely right: this isn’t healthy.  Furthermore he’s not prepared for it at all.

They all look the same, with wide purple eyes and silvery hair.  Aegon’s skin is a bit darker, but Rhaegar, and his sister Daenerys and his mother—Jon’s  _grandmother_.  Jon hadn’t thought he’d  _had_  a grandmother—all are so pale that they seem almost skeletal.  Jon had never felt like he’d fit in with his brothers and sisters for the most part, with their red hair and blue eyes, but at least he’d had Arya, and dad, and Uncle Benjen.  He’d have looked even more a freak if he’d been raised here, with his long face and dark hair.

"And you’re sure that you’re Lyanna’s?" It is Rhaella Targaryen who asks the question, her voice cold—colder than ever Catelyn Stark’s had been.

"That’s what my d—my uncle says.  Yes," Jon says slowly.

"He’s very obviously a Stark," says Rhaella, and she lifts her teacup to her mouth, and Jon thinks he hears some level of distaste to her voice.  "Looks just like he belongs in a family portrait.  Looks  _nothing_  like you.”  She is looking at Rhaegar firmly.

"No," Rhaegar agrees uncomfortably. 

Jon looks down at his hands.

"Jon, would you like another cup of tea?" 

He’d never spoken to Daenerys Targaryen at school.  They’d been in the same year, but she’d been a Hufflepuff and he’d never had classes with her—except for Care of Magical Creatures, but he’d always paired with Robb because Robb had been the only Gryffindor to sign up for the class so they’d put him in with their section.  Her voice is gentle, and her expression kind and she’s smiling at him with his own smile.

* * *

It’s probably just about the worst timing in the world.  That’s the only thing she can think when she’s finished smoothing Rhaenys’ hair and drying her tears.  He couldn’t have waited like…she doesn’t know.  Another month?  Let them finish mourning Elia before he swoops in and throws the very fact of his existence in their faces?  

Rhaenys had refused to meet him, even though Aegon and Dany had both begged her.  She’d spent the afternoon crying on her couch, with Arianne and Viserys hovering over her and trying to keep her from getting more upset than she already was.

The funny thing about it is that Arianne  _remembers_  Jon Snow.  She remembers him.  Solemn bastard, always sitting with his half-brother at the Gryffindor table.  The uncharitable part of her thinks he gets his solemnity naturally.  It’s not like she’s ever seen Uncle Rhaegar smile.  That doesn’t help though.

Other than that…She doesn’t really know him.  She only hears storyies about his family from her cousins who are still at school.  Obella flies in a Broom Club that his little sister had started.  Little cousin.  She’s his cousin, really.  Rhaenys is his sister.   Not Arya Stark.

Obella says that Arya’s one of the nicest people she’s ever met.  Obella says that Arya’s warm, and welcoming, and doesn’t care what house someone comes from, or what their blood status is, or anything.  She’ll make friends with anyone.  She’ll judge someone on who they are, not on who they should be.  And Arianne’s never given a thought to that sort of thing, but at least in this case…Jon Snow never asked to be concieved.  He never asked to be part of their family.  He just is.  

So maybe…maybe she should hold off judgement until she meets him.  Because sure, maybe he’s a solemn bastard.  But Rhaenys is solemn sometimes too.

* * *

She’s breaking the rules.  She’s breaking the rules and if she’s  _ever_  broken a rule, it’s never been like this, and she’s not sure she’ll forgive herself.  She’s a good girl, she’s  _Head Girl,_ she can’t just go sneaking off and…and…

Ned’s hand is at the small of her back, and his heart is pounding against hands as he leans down and kisses her, kisses her gently at first, his lips ghosting over hers as if he’s not sure that she wants him to kiss her.  And she’s not sure that she does—not because she doesn’t want him kissing her, but because they’re supposed to be patrolling, they’re supposed to be making sure no one is doing anything out of line and there they are, in an alcove on the fourth floor, being very out of line.

And she doesn’t understand—doesn’t understand why he wants to kiss her, when it was so recently that he too was berating her for what she’d said to Jon, but he seems not to remember that.  But surely it matters—that he thinks she was wrong.  Surely he must know she’s not perfect, and if he knows she’s not perfect, then how long will it be before he gets snide like Joff did and—

His tongue is tracing her lips and she feels her fingers tighten in his shirt and she opens her mouth.  

He tastes good.  And she likes the noise he makes when his tongue wraps around hers.  It’s such a happy sound.  He’s happy, kissing her.  And she…she might just be happy kissing him too.

* * *

Jon awakens to the sound of a knock on his door, and he winces as he makes his way across his flat and blinks three times when he finds Daenerys Targaryen standing outside, holding a box of donuts and some coffee.

"Can I come in?" she asks and he nods and steps aside, letting her through.  She settles on his couch while he goes and finds a plate for the donuts.  "Sorry my mum was a right pain the other day," Dany says to him.

"It’s fine," Jon says as he clears off the coffee table and puts the plate down, tipping the box of donuts over so that they’re somewhere towards the middle of the plate.  Catelyn Stark would purse her lips at his hospitality.  "I’ve dealt with worse."

"All the same—sorry," Daenerys says.  "She…she gets edgy sometimes.  A lot of the time.  It’s…well."

"It’s fine.  Really.  I mean it."  Jon reaches for a donut.  It’s very good.  Sugary.  "Where’d you get these?" he asks her.

"Fat Tom’s?  Over in Diagon Alley?  I’d never seen it before, but that’s not surprising."

"They’re good," Jon says, and Daenerys smiles.  Then she takes a deep breath.

"Look I—I know that things must be…"

"Bollocks?"

"Crazy for you right now.  But I just want you to know…If you need to talk about anything.  And don’t want to deal with…well, I’m ears.  I promise.  I…I can’t imagine how hard it must be.  But I can try and help you with it…if you’d like."

He thinks of Catelyn Stark’s horror, of his father’s lie, of Rhaella Targaryen’s harsh voice, of his  _real_ father’s distance, of Sansa’s “well—cousin,” of Arya burrowing herself into his side.  He wonders if she could even begin to understand the half of it.  But she’s perched on his couch and looks like she means it and…and he doesn’t really know anything anymore.  He knows what everyone says family means, and every time he thinks he’s settled on it, he thinks he’s redefined it so it doesn’t hurt anymore, something new comes along and he can’t…so maybe she’ll…maybe she’ll help with that.

* * *

"She hasn’t said anything," Jon says.  At some point, over the past three hours, he’d come to lie with his head on her lap, and Dany is weaving her fingers through his hair, braiding it, the way that Aegon had never let her braid his hair unless Rhaenys was around to make him.

"Has your dad?" His dad.  He’d decided Ned Stark was still his dad.  Dany can’t blame him for that.  It explains his pain more clearly, she thinks.

"No.  He hasn’t.  But I know what that means.  I…I never know what silence means from her." 

Dany frowns and takes another lock of Jon’s hair and splits it into three, weaving it through her fingers.  ”It…it might be…”

"I’m not sure I want to know," Jon says and there’s a blackness in his voice that Dany  _hates_.  ”I’d almost rather not.  Like why should I…but I…”

He doesn’t say what, though.  He just sits there with his eyes closed and Dany is almost afraid to ask him.  

* * *

She thinks it says a lot about Jon that he doesn’t ask her to go away.  That hours of them talking, of him listening to Viserys being a snot, and Aegon being the darling, and Rhaenys the closest to the Martell side of the family, and of her listening to his dad lying, and Robb being the star and Sansa calling him “cousin” and Arya’s smile and constant warmth and Bran’s accident and Rickon’s nervousness about being away from home and Catelyn Stark’s neglect…hours and hours and hours of just talking…She thinks it says a lot about Jon that when it begins to get dark, he says, “I’m meeting a friend for dinner.  Want to join?  Do you remember Sam Tarly?”

And she ends up in Hogsmeade with her new nephew—her nephew who is older than her, and has actually been around a lot longer than she thought, but that’s hardly the point, as they had both decided—and Sam Tarly, who she remembers only vaguely as being someone who smiled when he gave homework help.

He smiles at her now.  He looks positively thrilled to see her, and when Jon says vaguely, “This is my aunt.  I don’t remember if you…” Sam grabs her hand and shakes it vigorously.  

Jon grins, and Sam grins, and Dany grins too, and when the barmaid brings over their dinners, Dany positively beams at her, and the girl looks so surprised—as if she’d never even dreamed that someone could smile at her like that—that Dany asks if she won’t join their table too.

The girl blushes, and looks at Sam.

And Sam blushes.

And Dany looks at Jon, and sees that he saw too.

* * *

"You all right?" Gendry asks her. He’s sitting crosslegged in front of the fire, and maybe it’s because the red of the fire makes the blue in his eyes pop more or because she—ugh.  She wishes she’d never had that dream.

"Fine!" Her voice sounds hearty.  Why does it sound hearty?  He’d just asked a stupid question.

"Sure," he says dryly.  "I believe that one.  What’s up?"

"Nothing!" Arya lies firmly.  She’s glad that it’s her head in the fire this time.  She’s glad because it means he can’t tell if she’s blushing because of the heat, or because she’s actually blushing, and she knows she’s actually blushing.

"You know what I’ve learned over the years?" Gendry asks, as if changing the subject, but she knows him too well, knows that he’s stubborn as a bull and never lets anything drop, and she bites her lip, waiting for it.  "That you are remarkably daft sometimes and also remarkably transparent and you are lying right now."

"Am not."

"You are."

"I’m not a liar."

"No, you’re not a liar.  But you’re lying right now.  There’s a difference."

Arya glares at him.  He would get pedantic.  Why had she dreamed about kissing him?  Why did she have to remember that dream  _again_ right now?  It’s all so unfair.

"Fine," Gendry shrugs at last.  "Don’t tell me.  Let it eat you up from the inside."

And it will.  She knows it will.  Because she’ll take this secret to the bloody grave if she has to.

* * *

Stannis is fuming.  He’s been fuming for hours, now, that much Davos has been able to tell.  And he’s still fuming now.

It’s hard, sometimes.  Sometimes Stannis takes a bit of time to get around to what’s  _really_  bothering him.  And Davos just has to wait—wait until it becomes clear.  ”And bloody Ned Stark is now coming.  Why is it that bloody Ned Stark is always invited to things?  It’s Selyse’s birthday.  We were supposed to have a family dinner and now Robert goes and…” Stannis sighs heavily.  

"Your brother," Davos begins.

"Is the most inconsiderate lout to walk this planet?"

"I was going to say is a remarkably unthinking man, but that works," Davos says gently, patting Stannis on the arm.

Stannis just shakes his head and grits his teeth.  

"Invite me and Marya," Davos suggests.  "If Robert’s bringing a friend, you can bring one too.  Especially since it’s Selyse’s birthday."

Stannis blinks at him.  ”That’s sinking to his level.”

"I don’t think it is," shrugs Davos.  "I think it’s playing the same game as him.  Look, do you want to suffer through a dinner with your brother?  This is supposed to be a celebration.  Unless you don’t want us to come of course."

"No," Stannis says quickly, then, again, more slowly, "No.  No I want you to come."

* * *

He gets home from work to find Uncle Benjen sitting in his living room, in exactly the same seat that Dany had been in only a day before.

"Hello, Uncle Benjen," he says, trying not to sound surprised.  He’s not surprised, really.  Uncle Benjen has never been one for waiting for the door to be opened, and Uncle Benjen—he thinks with a jolt—is still  _Uncle_  Benjen.

"You know, when Ned told me not to tell you, I thought he’d not bugger it up so much when telling you," Uncle Benjen says.  He withdraws a large bottle of firewhisky from a bag at his feet that Jon has only just noticed.  "And honestly, I’m mad as hell about that.  He’s supposed to have not upset you as much as he did.  But that’s Ned—always convinced he’s right.  So if you want to punch me in the face for knowing and not having told you, go ahead.  It might help you feel better.  Otherwise, if you’d like a drink, and a whine, I’m here.  Or, if you’d rather talk about nothing at all, that’s good too, and I can see myself out."

Jon stares at his uncle and feels his heart twist a bit.   _This_ , he thinks,  _This is what they should be doing.  But they’re_ not.  

"I think I’ve had more firewhisky than I can stomach lately," Jon says, "And I like you too much to want to break your nose.  But if you want dinner and you can tell me all sorts of embarrasing stories about…no.  No, if you can tell me stories about my mum—ones I haven’t heard before…"  He swallows.  No one had really ever spoken about Lyanna Stark growing up.  It had been too painful for dad.

Uncle Benjen’s already putting the bottle away.  ”Have you hard about the time she locked Brandon in a closet and refused to let him out until he agreed to let her test out bat bogey hexes on him?”

Jon smiles.  It sounds like something Arya would do.  ”No—no I haven’t.”

"Well, my friend, have I got a story for you."

* * *

She acts as though it hasn’t happened.  As though none of anything had happened.  As though Arya wasn’t not talking to her, as though she hadn’t said what she’d said to Jon, as though they hadn’t kissed on the fourth floor.

Part of Ned doesn’t understand why she does that—why she acts as though none of anything had happened, why she acts as though things are perfect all the time, even when he’s quite sure that most would agree that they aren’t.  But Sansa just smiles and nods and acts like it’s fine, and like everything is good and so he just…follows her lead.  He doesn’t like the lead.  But he follows it anyway.

But now they’re the last ones up in the common room, and it’s past midnight, and all Ned can think is that he wants to kiss her again and damn their Transfiguration essays, but he doesn’t.  Instead, he asks her, “Are you all right?” and his voice sounds small in the air of the room.

"Of course I’m all right," she responds easily, and she smiles at him and he knows that with that smile, she’s trying to convince him that it’s the truth.

But Ned knows a lie when he sees one and he just raises his eyebrows and Sansa blinks quickly and her eyes grow bright and she sucks her lips between her teeth.

"What is it?"

"I—I—" she fumbles for words for a moment, before they come spilling out of her, "What if—I—"  She wipes away a tear and her eyes are so bright now. "I—I think I know what I need to apologize for.  But I don’t know how.  How do you apologize for…for…for something like that?"  Ned sighs and leans back in his chair, and she continues, as though she can’t stop now.  "What matters is that he’s Jon, not who his parents are, and that he’s always been there with us and that he’s our family and—and—how do you—what do you—"

"Sansa, sometimes there aren’t rules and guidelines for everything," Ned says gently.  "Sometimes you have to wing it."

"Wing it?"

"Wing it."

* * *

Only a few weeks after her mother dies, and only a few days after she learns that she has had a secret half-brother this entire time, Balerion dies.

He’s old—twenty-two is  _very_ old for a cat—even a house cat, and he’d been grouchy to the last, but Rhaenys cries.  She cries and cries and cries because why is everything happening all at once?  She didn’t ask for this?  Surely the world is conspiring?

She buries Balerion near her grandmother’s house, crying the whole time in a way that she hadn’t been able to summon tears for her mother.  Is she a horrible person?  That she can cry over her dead cat but not her dead mother?  Not just cry, either—weep, blubber.  

She sits there for a while, hoping it will rain, but it doesn’t.  Then she disapparates and finds herself in front of Viserys’ apartment.  She knocks, and when he opens the door for her, she doesn’t  _care_  that he has a roommate she kisses him, kisses him full on the mouth and he kisses her back and for a moment she doesn’t feel empty inside anymore.

* * *

It feels odd helping her shrug out of her traveling cloak when they get to Robert’s.  It feels strange smiling at her the way he did before, and seeing her smile back at him as though nothing had happened.  He does not like it.  Not at all.

He spends most of the evening in silence.  Stannis’ friend, Davos Seaworth charms and delights them all, regaling them with tales of his sons’ tomfoolery at Hogwarts.  Ned had always liked Davos.  He thought he’d had good sense, even when they’d been at school, and now is no different.  Davos smiles, and laughs, and he and Stannis bicker about work and about their children, and it almost feels like a real birthday party, a real celebration.

Except Cat’s sitting next to him with her back straighter than a ramrod and whenever someone asks her a question, it looks like her face is moving stone and none of the warmth in her tone reaches her eyes.

 _I have to talk to her,_ Ned thinks.  _I’ve let this go one too long.  I have to..._

* * *

"I promised Lyanna I’d keep him safe," Ned says quietly when they reach their house again, and Catelyn turns to him.  

"Safe?" she asks.

"Safe.  None of us knew how anything would happen with the Targaryens.  And robert—Robert would have…"

"No harm would have come to him.  We’re not in the middle ages," Catelyn says coolly, her eyes narrowing.  "You promised her you’d keep him safe.  Safe from what?"

"Cat—"

"Ned," and she sounds shrill, she knows she does, but she doesn’t care, because she knows what hurts, "You  _lied_ to me.  You turned me into a  _hypocrite_.  Into a  _monster_.  Do you realize—”

"Cat—"

"No.  Stop it!  Stop it!" She’s screaming now and she doesn’t care.  Doesn’t care at all because she’s blinded by rage or tears or pain or all of them.  "I was  _cruel_  to him, Ned!  I never called him by his  _name!_ ”

"You didn’t kn—"

"I didn’t know.  You’re right.  And I did it anyway.  I did it because you  _let_ me, but I still did it.”

The words hang in the air like a spell and they stare at one another, her and Ned, her and her husband, and oh this hurts, it hurts to have him staring at her, it hurts to look at him, but at least it’s not silence.  ”I can never say I’m a good mother ever again,” Cat says and now her voice is icy.  ”Never.  Because that’s a lie.”

"You were never his mother, Cat," Ned begins.

"No.  I wasn’t.  You’re right.  But I was his guardian.  And I didn’t protect him from myself.  And  _you_  didn’t protect him either.”  She lets out a bitter laugh.  ”I wonder—when Lyanna said to keep him safe, did she intend to mean from me as well?”

"Cat—"

"No, I’m serious, Ned.  Did she?  She wanted him to have a home, and love and joy and peace and—"

"He  _did_ ,” Ned insisted.

"Yes.  Despite me, though."  She laughs again, but it’s not funny. It’s the opposite as funny.  If anything, she feels like nothing will ever be bad again.  "You turned me into a trope, Ned.  A wicked step-mother."

* * *

"You aren’t a wicked step-mother, Cat," Ned says.  His heart is pounding in his chest.  "You—" but he stops, because she’s raising her eyebrows at him and he knows that anything he says won’t convince her—it will make her angrier.  He’s afraid now.  Afraid of everything, afraid of losing her, and merlin, he wishes he had some sort of Gryffindor courage, some sort of bravery.

She’s standing there with her arms crossed over her chest and she looks both small and tremendous all at once so powerful is her fury, so compressed is her body, as if she’s curling around herself, to protect herself from more of whatever it is he could throw at her.

"I’m sorry," he says.  "I’m sorry."

Cat closes her eyes and inhales slowly through her nose.  ”I can’t say that it’s all right.  And I don’t know if I can forgive you.”

"I’m not asking you to," Ned says slowly.  "I’m…Just know that I’m sorry.  It was never my intention to hurt you, never my intention to hurt Jon.  But I have done both of those things and I am sorry.  And…And I will make it right."

Cat’s arms drop to her sides and she trembles for a moment, and he’s not sure if she’s going to explode or if she’s going to start to cry.  It turns out to be neither.

"You promised me that you would never lie to me.  That there would never be any secrets between us," Cat breathes.  "And that in itself was a lie.  You have lied to me about this.  And I honestly don’t believe you’ve lied to me about anything else—"

"I haven’t," Ned says quickly.

"But this—this is one hell of a lie, Ned.  It hurts me and breaks me and it makes it hard for me to even look at your face."  Ned bites his lip and looks down for just a moment, before Catelyn continues.  "And you say you’ll do all you can to make it right?  What  _can_  make it right, Ned?  How do you fix this?  How do you unlie to me?  How do you make it so that I didn’t hurt your nephew?”

"I don’t know.  I wish I did.  And I will find out.  But for now, I don’t know."

Cat opens her eyes at last.  ”I don’t either,” she says slowly.  ”And that scares me.”

And to his complete shock, she steps towards him and wraps her arms around him and begins to cry and, out of reflex, out of relief, he hugs her and reaches up to run his fingers through her long red hair.

* * *

_Dear Jon,_

_I’m sorry for the way that I spoke when you were here last.  It was unthinking, and I didn’t realize that it was hurtful at the time.  I hope you can forgive me._

_I don’t really know what to say, in all honesty.  I don’t think anyone does.  A friend pointed out to me that this is one of those times when there isn’t a “way to act” and a “way to be” and you just have to go. And I imagine that that’s hardest for you, because you have to deal with your own confusion, as well as everyone else’s confusion, which I’m sure compounds.  And I know it will sort out at some point.  But until it’s properly sorted, please know that we all love you, and that will never change no matter what._

_If you’re up again, please come and say hi again.  If not, I’ll see you at Christmas!_

_All my love,_

_Sansa_


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jon, Benjen, Ned, Petyr, Lysa, Catelyn, Jaime, Brienne, Cersei, Grenny, Pyp, Arya, Gendry, Sansa, Edric, Robb, Theon, Beric, Allyria, Rickon, Ygritte

Jon wakes up to the sound of a knock on his front door, and he knows who’s on the other side of it without having to call.  He’s heard that knock his whole life, firm but quiet—three quick strokes, and then stillness, waiting.

His dad’s on the other side of the door and Jon feels goosebumps break out across his skin.  His dad’s there. He hasn’t spoken to his dad in weeks now.

Uncle Benjen’s lying on the floor, and Jon’s surprised that he hadn’t gone off home.  Maybe he’d been too drunk to apparate.  Jon hadn’t had anything to drink, but after several hours, Benjen had opened oup the bottle of firewhiskey he had brought.

"Hello," Jon says as he opens the door.

Ned Stark takes a deep breath, then speaks.  ”Hello, Jon.  I—I thought I’d give you the full story.  If you wanted it.”

* * *

"It’s…difficult to explain," Ned began.  He was sitting in the lone armchair in Jon’s living room, watching as Jon put on the face he so often associated with his work at the ministry.  Scrutinizing, weighing, listening, but not necessarily taking each word at face value.  It was a face that Ned had always liked to think he’d gotten from him.  He certainly had never had it from Lyanna.  

"And it begins with the war, I suppose.  Lyanna…she was a fighter.  Brandon always called her a bleeding heart, which was true, but she wasn’t the sort to just…sit back and let things happen around her.  So she joined the Order and fought."

"Yeah, I know this bit," Jon says, his voice even.  

Benjen cleared his throat.  ”The thing that was hard about Lyanna was that she listened to people.  Always and forever.  Whenever someone had something to say, Lyanna would listen.  And…and that can be a huge asset in a war—you learn things about your enemy.  You understand how they move, how they think, but Lyanna…I think she had too much empathy at times.  It got the better of her and that’s a dangerous thing, especially since she was always trying to prove herself.  It made it…made it hard for her to be rational.”

"Rational…" Ned sighed.  He’d come to hate that word over the years.  Rational and reasonable both.  As if ration and reason were the only things in the world.  "Well…It’s hard to…she disappeared though, in the end.  Just vanished one day, and we assumed the worst.That’s what you do in a war."

* * *

"That was the end of it for most people.  People went missing over the course of the war, and they didn’t rematerialize.  You didn’t have to ask too many questions to guess what had happened to them.  But Lyanna…well, she rematerialized towards the end.  We found her and she was pregnant with you.” 

Ben watched Ned carefully.  He’d heard this story before—Ned had told him once, exactly once, just after Jon had been born.  He couldn’t not tell Ben, he’d said, but it was a secret, and he’d promised Lyanna, and Benjen had to promise too, so he had. 

“She’d believed him, you see.  Whatever it was that he believed, she’d believed him.  And, well, you know that Rhaegar Targaryen was operating on his own towards the end of the War, and that he wasn’t taking orders from his father anymore, but all the same—it wasn’t helpful, I don’t think.  She’d gone off with him and they’d had their affair and towards the end of it, her life, the war, whatever you want to call it,” Ned looked so agitated, his eyes were deep and heavy and sad and Ben wondered not for the first time what it had been like to find her as she lay dying, right when he’d thought he could save her.  He’s glad he wouldn’t ever know.  “She’d gotten cold feet and wanted to come home.  And he wouldn’t let her.  He just kept her there—because of you, I think.  If she hadn’t been pregnant, maybe he would have let her.  Everyone could see the War was ending, but you…

“I found her,” his voice sounded dead, haunted, “I found her right after you’d been born.  She was dying, and she wanted me to take you, pretend you were mine, hide you.  And Rhaegar Targaryen might know you were alive, but I wasn’t to let him near you until you were older.  And with the War ending, there wouldn’t be anything he could do…”

Ned’s voice trailed away and Ben looked between him and Jon.  Jon’s face was unreadable, the way Lyanna’s had been the last time that Ben had seen her.

* * *

She is getting a little hard to manage.  She’s always been jealous, Lysa, but she’s also always trusted him, always  _believed_  him.  But now…now he has to be careful.  Twice now, he’s thought he’s seen her following him when he goes to Diagon Alley.  She’s not good at stealth and subtlety.  She was, once, before Robert died, but she isn’t anymore.  That, too, is dangerous.

Dangerous because it’s a balancing act now—he needs her to be what he needs her to be, and if it goes amiss, everything will explode in his face, and he’s come too far for everything to explode in his face.

A part of him wants her dead too—she’s too irrational, too unpredictable, and maybe if she died, Cat would be distraught, and if Cat was distraught and angry with Ned, who else could she turn to?  Edmure would provide comfort, but no solace. 

But how to make it happen?  How to get rid of Lysa in a way that didn’t incriminate himself?  He’d have to be careful.  He’d have to be very, very careful.

* * *

Brienne has always sensed that something was off.  Something about the way that Jaime acts, the way he’s almost too casual when he mentions plans with his sister.  He doesn’t do it around other—just around her, as if afraid she’ll notice something, and Brienne is a good enough auror-in-training to know when someone’s trying to cover something up.

 _He’s very close to his sister, isn’t he?_  Someone had once said.  Someone that Marbrand had introduced her to after a work party.  Varys.   _Just Varys_ , he’d said.   _The surname’s hard to pronounce I won’t even trouble you with it._  

 _He’s very close to his sister, isn’t he?_   She calms him down.  He always seems more relaxed after he’s gone to get tea with her.  His smile is wider, his eyes are brighter, his cheeks are redder.

_He’s very close to his sister, isn’t he?_

She shudders.  It  _can’t_  be true.  Surely it can’t be.  For all Tywin Lannister cares about purity of blood, surely he’s not as bad as  _Aerys Targaryen_  when it came down to it.  Surely he…he hadn’t put that idea in his children’s heads.

Cersei’s children are all blonde and green-eyed.  And the boys do look like Jaime.  But…

Sometimes, she sees Jaime watching her out of the corner of his eye—especially after he’s been with Cersei.  Watching her, as if watching to make sure she hasn’t noticed  _it._

* * *

Grenn isn’t sure whyit started happening.  Maybe it was always going to happen, or maybe it never would have.  He knows  _when_ , of course.  The “when” is easy.  The “when” is Jon going off and being promoted and then having a melt-down such that he barely talks to anyone at work anymore because he’s too wrapped up in his head, and Edd being assigned separate task forces, and Sam being off at Hogwarts and it’s just him and Pyp and Pyp’s stupid big ears that go red whenever he blushes and he’s been blushing a lot lately. 

It’s just the two of them, and Grenn knows it’s unprofessional, and he doesn’t know when he stopped only noticing Pyp’s ears and started noticing his arse, but it happened.  He’s got a nice one, too.  Small, like Pyp.   And why do his ears keep going red whenever they sit near one another?  And why— _why_ —does Grenn’s breath catch in his throat?

He feels like a teenager again, completely out of control.  He doesn’t like it.

He doesn’t want it to stop.

* * *

Wigtown’s going to the playoffs.

She reads about it in  _The Daily Prophet_  and Hot Pie waves over at her from the Hufflepuff table to see if she’d seen.  She grins at him and when he passes her on his way to Potions, he says, “I think I’ll send him something.  He liked those cookies, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Arya manages because her heart has stopped.

She should get Gendry something, shouldn’t she?  To celebrate?  But what could she get him.  She’s not like Hot Pie, she’s not got…she can’t bake or anything, and the next Hogsmeade weekend isn’t for ages and besides he could just apparate over to Honeyduke’s and buy whatever sweets he liked.  She couldn’t send him anything special.

She wants to though. Some silly part of her wants to.   _Not_ , she insists to herself, the part that had dreamed about kissing him.   _Not_  that part.   _That_  part needs to stay well shut up at this point. 

What can she get him.  Her dad got her mum flowers sometimes, after a big issue came out, or on anniv—she’s  _not_  getting Gendry flowers.  Why would she do that?  It’s just stupid.   _He’s_ just stupid.  He’s never around and his letters are always stupid and she needs to get to class, so she gets up and swings her bag over her shoulders, trying not to feel flustered, trying not to feel like she’s going to cry.

* * *

"He hasn’t responded," Sansa hisses under her breath during Charms.

“Who hasn’t replied?” Ned replies out of the sound of his mouth.  She wonders how he does it, how he looks like he’s not heard a word she’s said, how he looks like he’s paying complete attention to Professor Dustin, but clearly isn’t because he had heard her and wasn’t surprised that she’d hissed something to him.

“Jon.  To my letter,” Sansa mutters.

“Give him time.  Let him be.  You can’t make people do anything.  You’ve just got to let them be how they are.”

Sansa frowns and squints at the board.  Professor Dustin is now drawing a huge diagram, but her handwriting while labeling it is so minute that Sansa can’t read it.

“Yes, but what if he’s still angry with me. How do I keep him from being angry with me?”

“Well, in my experience, most people just get angrier at you when you tell them to stop being angry.  So maybe…wait for him.  You did the right thing.  He’ll come round to it.  I know he will.”

Sansa chances a glance at Ned, but he is looking at the blackboard too.  She sees him smile though, and she knows that smile is for her.

* * *

She knows that Cat’s up to something.  She  _knows_  it.  Cat’s always led Petyr on, even when they were girls.  She’d smile at him, and laugh at all his jokes, and get him to do things for her an he’d just  _do_  it, even though she didn’t care.  She had Brandon Stark, and then Ned Stark too.  What was it with Cat and Starks, and why couldn’t she leave Petyr and Lysa alone—especially now that he was  _hers_?

And  _Petyr_ —he was  _lying_  to her, she  _knew_ it.  He’d say he was going to lunch with one of his colleagues but he’d go out to Diagon Alley and spend his time in garment shops trying on new travelling cloaks that were a royal shade of blue, and that was  _Cat’s favorite color_.  Why was he getting things in Cat’s favorite color?  He never got things in  _Lysa’s_  favorite color.

Edmure said that Cat was having trouble at home, that she and Ned were having a fight.  Didn’t any of them  _care_  that Lysa had lost her  _son?_   She’d  lost her only child, but the minute Cat has a tiff with perfect Ned, suddenly everyone’s fawning over her as if it’s the biggest tragedy in the world, and no one cares about Lysa, no one ever cares about Lysa except Petyr and Petyr is buying cloaks in Cat’s  _favorite color!_

* * *

Robb wakes up to the sound of a shout from his kitchen.  He flails, startled for just a moment, before dragging himself out of bed, reaching for his wand and hurrying across his flat.

Asha Greyjoy’s head is in his fireplace.  “You haven’t seen him, have you?” she demands and suddenly feels ill.  He shakes his head.  “Damn.  He didn’t come home last night and I can’t find him anywhere.  No one’s seen him and…”

“Where have you looked?  I’ll help you,” Robb asks quickly and Asha begins rattling off a list of pubs that Theon had once frequented, but which he had abandoned ever since his return from Egypt.  Robb asks her about a few more places and within ten minutes he’s running back into his bedroom to get dressed and find Theon, his heart pounding in his chest as he tries his best to push the fear aside, push the recklessness aside.

But he stops short when he opens his front door.  Jon’s standing there, looking disheveled and nervous.

“Theon?” Robb asks him, suddenly terrified.  It takes a lot to make his brother look nervous.  “What’ve you heard?”

Jon frowns.  “What’s happening with Theon?”

“He’s gone missing.  His sister’s panicking about it and I’m off to help her look for him.”

“Oh.  I—” Jon stops and for a moment Robb watches a war rage on his face.  Jon’s never liked Theon much, but Robb can tell he wants to help.  And he’s glad of that.  This sort of thing is Jon’s  _job_  after all.  “That’s not why I came.”

“Then what are you doing here?” Robb tries not to bark, but he can’t help it.  “It’s only 7:30 in the morning.”

“I…you haven’t been told have you?”

“Told what?”

* * *

He’d thought nothing could be worse than telling the younger ones and Sansa’s “Well, cousin.” 

He’d been wrong.

“What?” Robb breathes, his eyes going wide. 

“Yeah,” Jon says.  He can’t repeat it.  He can’t.  It’s bad enough telling Robb now.  Robb was his brother, his little brother, though he never called him that, because Robb had always been a bit bigger than Jon and besides, what was a few months anyway?  They were more like twins than anything else, even when they’d been sorted Gryffindor and Slytherin.  Nothing could rip them apart—not even as Jon rolled his eyes as Robb became a little more  _Gryffindor_  and Robb bit his tongue about Jon’s increasing  _Slytherin_.  They were more important to one another than that.

And Robb’s appalled.  Appalled and hurt and all sorts of other things that Jon is too and…

“I—I don’t…” Robb begins, and Jon nods.  “I…” then he shakes himself and Jon prepares himself.  “Theon.”

It shouldn’t hurt.  He shouldn’t be surprised.  Theon’s Robb’s friend and he’s in danger, and this was a bad time and Robb should have been told ages ago. 

He shouldn’t be hurt.

But he is.

* * *

“Is something wrong?” Cersei asks him as she swings her travelling cloak over her shoulders. Ordinarily, Jaime would have let his eyes follow the rippling wool as it settled around Cersei, draping over her in a way that made his eyes shine.

It’s a cool night—colder than it should be at this time of year, but he supposes that winter is well on its way by now. It’s cool, and dark, and the thing about cool, dark nights is that most people aren’t outside. Most people are curled around mugs of hot cider, in front of fireplaces, listening to the WWN as they drift off to sleep in their sweaters.

Jaime’s always liked hunting for people in autumn. There’s no one out and it makes it less dangerous if confrontations happen. But he gets the sense that whoever’s following them doesn’t know just how loud the crackling of fallen leaves can be.

* * *

He shows up late that night—later than usual, and Allyria bites back a frown when she hears the knock on her door. He’d told her that if he was ever late, it’d be because he is being a good and  _professional_ head of house, and that given that he has to at least pretend that he’s professional, given that he’s dating her, it might be good to actually put his job first. “If I’m late, give up on me for the night, and know I don’t mean it against you.”

And she didn’t. She really didn’t hold it against him at all. Because every other time he comes over, or they go out, or meet somewhere dressed as unobtrusive muggles, he’s always precisely on time—if not early.

So he’s late. And she can’t tell what to make of that.

“Wanted to see you,” he shrugs as he bends down to kiss her.

“Really? Because I thought you were going to be a paragon of professionalism tonight,” she teases, reaching up and smoothing the collar of his robes.

“Are you challenging me?” he asks, and there’s something husky about his voice that makes her stomach turn.

“So what if I am?” she responds, and merlin his pupils are dilated.

* * *

Well, if she’d gone and turned herself into a wicked stepmother, the very least she could do was try and not be that anymore. Now that she knew. Now that she…

She didn’t tell Ned. He’d had his secrets, she could have hers—and besides—this…this wasn’t about him. Not right now. Not at least…

She took a deep breath and strode into the little teashop and found that Jon was already sitting there, staring at the menu. His hair was combed today. How many times had she hinted that he comb his hair? How many times had she hinted, but not told, not ordered, because ordering would seem harsh but hinting…no. No she wasn’t going to do that to herself right now. Not right now. Later, when all this was done. But right now it was about now and soon, not then.

“Jon?” she says and the name feels odd on her lips. Jon looks up and she sees surprise, nervousness, defensiveness—all of it and more in those dark grey eyes.

“Mrs. Stark,” he says a bit stiffly as she sits down and he hands her the menu. She glances at it and knows she’ll pick a black tea at random when the server comes and they look at each other, neither of them speaking for a time, but neither of them avoiding one anothers’ gaze either.

Catelyn feels her heart rate quicken.

This is going to be harder than she’d dreaded.

* * *

He’s certainly not going to say the first thing. He’s not. He refuses. He’d talked through it all with Dany the night before, and she’d told him that he didn’t have to apologize for existing, or make her feel comfortable with anything. He did not have to be compliant. That was the hardest part—not being compliant.

He’d wondered about the darkness in her voice when she’d said that, but he didn’t ask. She was right, though. So he waited. He watched Catelyn Stark sit there primly, her auburn hair coiled back in an elegant bun, a string of pearls around her neck as she watched him.

Twice she opened her mouth to speak before she stopped herself from saying whatever it was that she’d been preparing herself to say.

The third time was different. “How is work?”

His heart leaps to his throat and it doesn’t quite fit there at all and everything feels compressed.

“Work’s all right,” he says, and she nods.

“We never did…never did celebrate your promotion,” she said, and it’s all Jon can do not to narrow his eyes. Is she just going to pretend like this is going to make up for years and years and years of coldness? Of horrible patterns and worrying that if he spent too much time with her children she’d—she’d…

Patterns, though. He frowned despite himself. She’d broken that pattern twice now—inviting him to tea and then starting off asking him about himself. That’s not their pattern. It never has been at all.

“Not properly,” she continues quickly, and he hears a panicked edge to her voice. “I—I don’t know if…” she inhales and her nostrils flare but this time when they flare it’s not a condemnation of something he’d done, or his simply being in the room. It’s different. Everything’s different.

The hardest part about Catelyn Stark has always been that she was a good person. A good person who made him feel terrible simply by being, and it had been almost  _harder_ that she’d been a good person because good people weren’t supposed to do that.

Her voice is different when she continues now. “I don’t know what to say. I don’t know if there’s anything I can say. There’s a lot I want to. And…” she seems to read his expression and her words come more quickly, “And I will. As I can. As I process it all. But let me start with this. I’m sorry. I know a simple apology doesn’t invalidate everything.” She closes her eyes and Jon feels his head lift almost of its own accord. “Everything that I did, or how I was. So please know that…that I won’t be that way again. I promise.”

* * *

It’s not a very long tea, in the end. It only takes about an hour, and Catelyn had taken the entire afternoon off work to devote to it if she had needed to. She’d told Jon as much, but he needed to get back to the office himself, he’d said, getting to his feet and dropping a sickle on the table. Catelyn handed it back to him and he raised his eyebrows at her and took it.

She doesn’t go back into work. She stays at the teashop for a while, sitting there numbly at her empty teacup, and she breathes in and out. He’d been hard on her, but she didn’t think he’d been unfair. Maybe he’d even been easy on her. She doesn’t know. She can’t really tell. She just knows that he knows and…and that’s what’s important. It’s important that he knows, and that they both…they both know that now is…now is now.

It hadn’t been worse than she’d expected. It had only been different. But that was hardly surprising, now that she thought on it. She really only barely knows Jon Snow at all.

* * *

Jaime’s on edge. She can tell. They’ve always been careful (Cersei doesn’t know  _what_  would happen if their father found out), but Jaime’s being  _ridiculous_  these days. Only very late at night, only when he’s the last one coming out of the office, only when they meet up in seedy muggle hotels—a different one every time—and only if they confound the concierge so that she can’t remember even  _seeing_  a blonde couple who looked like they could be brother and sister.

She can’t tell if she finds it…well, she’s hardly ever been one to believe in romance. It’s not romantic at all. She likes that he cares, at least, that for once in his life he’s throwing caution to the winds. How many times had he said “hang it all” and suggested that she divorce Robert and  _marry_ him.

“I love you,” she’d said. “Isn’t that enough?” Because how did you make a Gryffindor understand that it wasn’t about love, or the “right thing” it was about making sure that no one could rip them down, and they would rip them down if they knew—her, and Jaime, and all three of their children, and their father, and probably even Tyrion, though knowing him he’d worm his way out of the inevitable storm of it all.

It’s nice that she’s not the only one worried about being caught, though. It’s nice that he’s beginning to care, even if it’s ridiculous.

* * *

t’s almost a dream. Almost. It would be a dream if it weren’t for Gerold, because Gerold means they have to be careful and fuck—he doesn’t want to be careful. He wants to lie there with her staring at the ceiling, covered in sweat and saliva. He wants to listen to her breathing, to hear her showering, to breathe the smell of her in the air after she’s gone off to work.

It makes it all bearable—that Rhaenys is with him, that she loves him. The fact that everyone’s fawning over stupid Jon far more than they had ever fawned over him, that Dany has been home but hasn’t even bothered to say hello because she’s too busy getting to know the new nephew…It’s not like anyone’s ever paid attention to him anyway—no one except Rhaenys.

She’s sad a lot of the time. When she thinks he’s not looking, he sees her eyes go bright with tears. If it were a dream she’d be laughing all the time, and smiling, and exquisitely joyful. But it’s not a dream—it’s better than a dream. It’s real.

* * *

He decides fairly quickly that as much as he likes Dany(and he really does like Dany. She’s like Robb—wholly supportive and…and…he tries not to think about it. Robb’s still looking for Theon and Jon’s talked more to _Catelyn Stark_  than to Robb in the past week. And it hurts all over again. So fine. Maybe Dany isn’t like Robb. Maybe she’s like Arya. That’s a thought that makes him smile)—

In any case, as much as he likes Dany, he realizes fairly quickly that he doesn’t like Rhaegar very much. Maybe it’s that he’s a strange man—always quiet, always distant, always seeming to stare out a window—but it’s more likely that he’s just not… _fatherly_. It’s confusing. Not once does he seem to look at  _any_ of them with some sort of familial conviviality—not Dany, or Aegon, or Rhaenys and Viserys when they are over to a luncheon. He’s just…

He’s…

He’s not  _dad_.

* * *

It’s Weasel’s birthday and no one is sitting with her. No one.

It makes Rickon angry. He got to class late and is standing in the doorway, hoping very much that Professor Mallister won’t notice he’s late if he finds the right moment to sit down.

Aren’t Gryffindors supposed to be all about doing the right thing? It’s her  _birthday_  and she’s sitting there all by herself in potions, looking like she’s fighting back tears, because when you’re twelve, you’re supposed to have friends, even if you are new to school.

When Professor Mallister bends over Perra’s cauldron, Rickon darts across the room and sits down next to Weasel, smiling at her. “Happy birthday,” he hisses loudly as she starts in surprise. She gives him a watery smile.

“My mum’s been baking a lot lately,” he says digging into his bag. “Want a birthday cookie? It might be a bit…” he opens the little bag that his mother had owled him that morning, “broken.”

The tears are gone from her eyes and she opens her mouth to reply, but doesn’t get to.

“Five points from Slytherin, Stark. Don’t be late again.”

But he doesn’t care. He made Weasel smile on her birthday.  _That’s what friends do_ , he thinks.  _Jon and Robb were friends even though Robb was a Gryffindor. Weasel can be my friend._

* * *

“Look, Tyrell, I don’t have time for—” Ygritte says, rolling her eyes, but Tyrell interrupts her.

“You’ll want this bit, I  _swear_.” She really didn’t think she did. She was really quite sure she didn’t actually. What she wanted most was to get Loras’ photographs so that she could do layout and get  _home_  today had been a nightmare. Cat Stark had been almost impossible to deal with for the past few weeks and she was already breathing down Ygritte’s neck to have proofs done  _today_ , even if everything wouldn’t be in order until tomorrow at ten when Walda finished her draft.

“Tyrell, if you keep—”

“Her stepson isn’t her stepson,” he breathed excitedly.

Ygritte blinked. “What?”

“Cat’s stepson. Her husband’s lovechild or whatever. He’s  _not her husband’s son_. He’s  _his secret nephew_.”

Ygritte looked at Tyrell for a moment before shaking her head. “Get your damn photographs in, Tyrell,” she sighed and turned back to her desk as he moved away.

No wonder Cat Stark had been rough recently. Ygritte sighed, and stretched, and wondered what on earth it would be like to find out that your father wasn’t actually your father.  _Why had he lied_ , she wondered. But she couldn’t think of an answer and could only assume that some people had weird senses of what was right.

* * *

Well…well shit.

He’d tried  _so hard_  to avoid this.  _So damn hard_. Like, he’d made himself promise time and time again that he wasn’t going to do anything, or say anything, or be weird at  _all_  because he  _knew_ that this was creepy, that this was weird. She’s  _fifteen_ , and he is  _old enough to know that that’s really not an acceptable age for him to be…to be…_

Fuck.

He reads her card over again. It’s a stupid card, really. He can hear her voice in every word, hear it like she’s sitting in the room calling him stupid and warning him that if he gets hit in the head by a bludger again the damage done to his brain will likely be irreparable so he’d better not. And he’d certainly better not get knocked off his broom. And if he does get hit in the head, make sure it’s not in the nose, because his nose is nice looking and  _fuck fuck fuck_ , she’d said she’d thought of sending him flowers or something but she hadn’t because that was stupid but congratulations and  _no._

He  _should not_  be happy that he thinks a  _fifteen year old_ has a crush on him. And he  _certainly_  should not have a crush on her right back.

They should throw him in Azkaban, he thinks as he folds Arya’s letter back up. They really should, he’s a menace.  _And he should not be happy about that._

* * *

Something that Sansa has noticed over the years is just how perfect things can be when they go how they’re supposed to. She knows that sounds redundant, but it’s not. There’s a difference that she’s tried to explain time and again to Jeyne between everything going right and everything going how it’s supposed to. And when everything goes how it’s supposed to, even the harder parts of your day don’t seem that hard because what do they matter, really?

That’s Ned, she realizes. That’s Ned, because Ned was something that went right and, it turned out how it was supposed to. She didn’t plan Ned. She had planned on spending her seventh year single and breathing and letting herself focus on her school work so that she could get those perfect NEWTs she knew were expected of her. But there was Ned and the way he just waltzed into her life, and even if she’d known him for years and years and years, this was how it was supposed to be, the two of them curled up by the fire, pouring over Transfiguration notes and Charms notes and Potions notes because those were the classes they took together. She was supposed to have found someone like this. It’s not supposed to be Joffrey, it’s supposed to be  _Ned_.

* * *

Bran is flying.

He likes flying. He likes that he can still fly. He wishes he could ride his broom through the Hogwarts. He’d tried once earlier that year and landed himself a week’s worth of detentions. Something about endangering the life of others. Even if they hadn’t been in danger. Bran is good at flying—it’s  _natural_  to him. He wouldn’t have hit anyone. It’s what makes him a good seeker.

“What’re you doing up there?” he hears from the ground and he looks down.

It’s dawn, and chilly, and a Saturday, and no one should be up this early, which naturally means that Lyanna Mormont is standing below him on the quidditch pitch, her broom thrown over her shoulders.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” he calls back.

She unshoulders her broom and mounts up and a moment later she’s right next to him.

“I suppose I should ask  _why_  are you up this early?” she says. The wind is blowing her ponytail.

“I could ask the same,” Bran replies because his answer is stupid, really. He just wanted to.

Lyanna snorts.

“Want to race?” she asks him. And before he even replies she’s off, hurtling towards the goal posts on the far side of the field and Bran doesn’t know if he even has a  _choice_  because if he doesn’t follow her she’ll make fun of him for losing. So he goes, and feels the wind in his face and it’s not long before they’re neck and neck, and then he’s passed her.

* * *

“Does he look like your father?” Uncle Aemon asks. Uncle Aemon is blind, and not really her uncle so much as her great-great-is there another great?-Uncle. He’s small, and his face is so wrinkled it looks like a walnut, and Dany used to be scared of it when she was younger but now she’s not.

“Not really,” she says quietly, pouring some tea into his teacup and handing it to him. He hums contentedly when his fingers grasp the warm porcelain and he turns his blind eyes to her.

“He’s good, though?”

“Yes,” Dany says.  _Better than Viserys_ , she adds silently.

“Your mother had rather a different opinion,” he says benignly.

“Mother is…” Dany frowned. Set in her ways? Fighting old battles? Bitter? “Mother doesn’t know him very well. I’ve spent more time with him. He’s good. He won’t…he won’t add shame to the family, or anything.”

“No more than he does by existing,” Uncle Aemon sighs. “You know, when your father was born, everyone was so sure that he’d be everything a wizard should be. Now though…” He reaches over and finds Dany’s hand with his own. “You know, I think that everyone put too many hopes on Rhaegar. And maybe it’s for the best, but you’ve always been brighter than anyone ever gave you credit for.”

Dany’s heart swells, and she leans over and kisses Uncle Aemon’s cheek.

* * *

Ned comes home to find Catelyn sitting at the kitchen table, reading over proofs of this month’s edition.

Ordinarily, he would go to her, bend over, kiss her cheek and rest his chin on her shoulder for a few minutes, staring at the mocked up headlines and letting his day slowly fade away in the smell of her. But today, he doesn’t. He goes and washes his hands in the kitchen sink, examines the pot of stew she has cooking on the stove. It’s too much stew for just the two of them, and he frowns.

“Is Robb coming over?” he asks her.

“Petyr,” she responds. “I invited Robb and Jon, but Jon’s busy and Robb hasn’t responded, so I assume he’s—”

“You invited Petyr?” Ned asks. He tries to keep his voice light. He knows that Cat is close to the man, but there’s something slippery about him that Ned doesn’t like. He also doesn’t like that whenever Petyr speaks, it is as though he is laughing internally at Ned.

“And Lysa,” she responds, still not looking up. “But Lysa’s not coming. It’s just us and Petyr.”

Ned makes a huffing sound in the back of his throat. “Does he have to…”

“Have to what? Come over? Ned, he’s like a brother to me. And he’s never lied to me, unlike some people in the room.”

“Cat, that’s not what I—”

“Did I come in the middle of a lover’s quarrel?” Ned’s head whips around and Petyr Baelish is standing in the doorway, a smile playing at the corner of his lips.

* * *

Cat has never sat through a more awkward dinner—never, noteven the one after Robert had had sex with Stannis’ sister-in-law in Stannis’ bed and then come down to eat with them all.

“Lysa’s well?” she asks Petyr.

“The poor dear is distraut,” Petyr responds, his voice thick and sad. “I think she’s stopped turning even to me for comfort. I worry about her sometimes. I worry that she’ll…” Catelyn’s heart flutters.

“That she’ll what?”

“Lysa’s been increasingly…upset, and I worry that she’ll…do something drastic. She’s lost her husband and her son in such a short span of time. That can truly take a toll on someone.”

“You should have insisted she come,” Ned says and Catelyn the concern in his voice is oddly soothing.  _Ned cares_ , she thinks.  _He does. He always cared, even if he…_

“I did,” Petyr sighs dramatically. “I truly did. I  _begged_  her to come. I do think there’s only so much I can do, and I  _wish_  she’d turn to Cat more for comfort. What could I give her that her own sister can’t?” Cat chews the inside of her lip.  “But of course, convincing Lysa to…I shouldn’t say.”

“Shouldn’t say what?” Cat asks quickly, in spite of herself. “Petyr, this is  _me_  you’re talking to.”

Petyr smiles at her. It’s a nice smile. He’s always had a nice smile. But it doesn’t reach his eyes and goosebumps rise along Catelyn’s forearms. “Well, it’s Ned. He was so close to Jon.”

 _Jon. He’d named Jon after Jon Arryn. He’d named him after the man who’d helped him through school, and he didn’t tell_ any of us. Petyr was still talking. “And I think she gets jealous, the poor dear. Seeing you with your happy marriage and your happy husband and your happy children.”  _Jon’s not my child. Jon’s not_ Ned’s  _child. Ned lied to me._

She looks over at him, and his face is like stone as he stares at Petyr, his eyes icy and a completely different voice fills her head.  _Petyr knows—why is he saying all this?_

“What are you implying?” Ned asks coolly.

“Implying? My dear Ned, I’m not implying anything,” Petyr responds genially. “I’m simply saying—”

“That Lysa can’t come here because of me? I don’t believe that.” Ned’s voice is harder than she’s ever heard it and it’s as if she’s stepped into a cold shower. She stares at Petyr, and seeing him now is like seeing a completely different person than the boy she’d played with as a child.

“Please leave,” she says, and her voice isn’t cold like Ned’s. Her voice holds all the hot fury that her uncle had always told her came from her mother. “Don’t come into my house and try and manipulate me.”

“Manipulate? Cat—I—” But Catelyn is reaching for her wand because she’d trusted him— _trusted him_ —and he’d said he’d never lied to her, and maybe he hadn’t, but at least Ned was honest in his dishonesty.

* * *

They clean the dishes together in silence, storing the leftover stew in the refrigerator. They work silently, as they have for years of cleaning up after six children, silently, until Ned can’t keep silent any longer.

“What do you mean, he was trying to manipulate you?”

Cat hands him a plate and he rubs a dish towel over it. “I told him about Jon,” she says quietly. “And how you lied to me. And…I don’t know, something just clicked and I’m sure…” she sighs. “I’m sure that it’s…well, he’s always been a bit in love with me and…”

“You think he was trying to make you angry with me?” Ned asks.

“Yes.”

“You know I don’t think that Bat Bogey Hex you sent at him was a strong enough punishment.” Cat smiles, but it’s a sad smile, and he adds quickly, “You don’t need his help to be mad at me.”

“Well, I think it says a lot that I’m more angry with him than with you,” she says.  She puts the sponge down and steps towards him, wrapping her arms around him. “I’m still angry with you, but I also still love you.”

Ned kisses the top of her head, and breathes in the smell of her shampoo, and feels that, maybe, the night wasn’t a complete waste of time.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ned, Catelyn, Jon, Robb, Theon, Rhaenys, Rhaegar, Brienne, Jaime, Stannis, Davos, Arya, Lysa, Sansa, Rickon, Bran

For the first time in what feels like ages, Ned feels warm when he wakes.  It takes a moment before he realizes why, then he feels a smile begin to creep across his face.

He knows that there’s a lot more to resolve, that even if Cat’s less angry with him than with others, she’ll still be furious with him for a long while.  He has known her long enough to know how her anger works.  But all the same, she’s curled up in his arms and he’s asleep in their bed and not on the couch, and even if they’ll have to work through more than they’ve ever had to work through in their life, he can’t worry about that now.  They’ve already started, they’ll keep going.  And she’s so warm beside him.

* * *

For the first time in a long while their breakfast isn’t silent.  She complains about an owl that Wilde sent her overnight with questions about their upcoming layout meeting, and Ned listens thoughtfully before making a suggestion.  Ned tells her about his upcoming meetings with Stannis Baratheon and he respects the man, but finds him hard to like and even more difficult to work with because he was so rigid sometimes.  

"Maybe if  _you_  were a little less rigid?” Cat suggests, taking a sip of her eyes, and Ned rolls his eyes.

"Why do  _I_  have to be the less rigid one?  Why can’t it be Stannis for once in his life?”

Cat suppresses a smile and shrugs.  ”Because then he wouldn’t be Stannis Baratheon.  I suppose so long as the right thing happens…”

Ned groans.  ”It will.  One way or another.  It will.”

She’s missed smiling over breakfast.  She’s missed being able to talk to him without her stomach lurching.  That thought alone makes her stomach lurch and she frowns.  It’s a small lurch though—or small in comparison, rather.  And maybe…maybe with more mornings like this it will fade entirely.  She hopes so.  She hopes…

* * *

Theon is still missing, and Jon opens a formal case even though Robb told him not to.  Robb had wanted him to help off the books, but whatever’s got Theon scared, or whoever’s taken him…that needs to be processed to the full extent of the law.

Things don’t make sense though.

Theon had come back from Egypt months ago, and everyone had said he’d been trying very hard to pretend like he was fine.  Trying, and failing, because he was jumpy, and if one thing could be said of Theon Greyjoy, it was that he wasn’t jumpy.  He had filed a request for a desk job at Gringotts, even though when he’d first gotten the job as a cursebreaker, he’d boasted that he would  _never_  have another _fucking deskjob ever_ again.  He’d lived with his sister.  Temporarily, he had claimed, but never making an effort to move out and find his own flat.  And he’d gotten a threatening letter, written in blood, to “Reek.”

It was the blood that worried Jon the most.  The blood had belonged to Domeric Bolton, another cursebreaker for Gringotts who had gone missing a good long while ago.  No one knew what had happened to him.  And now the two missing persons cases were connected, and that was not a comforting thought.

So whether or not Robb was angry about it, Jon didn’t care.  Robb didn’t always understand his enemy.

* * *

"Rhaenys?" 

Her father’s head is in the fire, and Rhaenys ignores it.  

"Rhaenys?" he repeats.  Rhaenys reaches over for the newspaper, even though she has already read the whole thing through and opens it, staring blankly at the text and blocking her father’s face from view.  "Rhaenys, please talk to me.  Your grandmother is worried about you."

"I would love to get tea with grandmother," Rhaenys says to no one in particular.

"But not me."  Her father’s voice is solemn.  Her father’s voice is  _always_  solemn.  Always.  She sees now why Viserys gets so annoyed at him.  It had never registered before now.  His solemnity.  But maybe he was solemn all the time to cover up his own hypocrisy.

"It’s horrible having a father who thinks so little of my mother, though she never wronged him," she says vaguely.  

She hears him clear his throat.

"That was a long time ago, Rhaenys," he says.

Rhaenys ficks the paper down and glares at her father.  ”It was.  But the vestiges of it will never go away.”

Part of her is glad that her mother had died before…before…

She wants to cry suddenly.  She wonders what her mother would have done if she’d known about Jon.   _Leave father, I hope_ , she thinks savagely.  

 _Mother can’t, though._ That’s the thought that hurts the most.   _Mother can’t.  She never knew and now she never can fight back.  She can’t leave him.  She can’t rage at him._

 _But I can_.

* * *

Robb focuses on Theon.  Robb focuses on Theon because that’s more time-sensitive.  That’s more time sensitive than…

 _Fuck, dad.  Why?_  

But no.  No he’s not going to think about that right now.  He’s going to find Theon.  Him and Asha and Jon…Jon who  _is_  his brother, who has  _always been_  his brother, and always been.  Jon will understand that.  He’ll have to.  Theon’s in trouble, and might be dead, and if Theon dies while Robb’s…he’ll never be able to live with himself.  Never.  Nor will Jon.  So he focuses on Theon, because there’s only so much a man can stand before his head tears itself apart.

* * *

"It’s true, then?" she blurts it out because she can’t not after he comes back from a long lunch with his sister.

"What’s true?" Jaime asks her.  He sounds casual—that sort of casual that comes when someone’s trying to hide something, trying to act like everything’s normal, and it makes Brienne want to cringe.

But she doesn’t.  She just stares at him and fights back the urge to bite her lip and shrug it off saying “never mind then,” which would be so easy, but there’s always that choice between doing what was easy and what was  _right_.

"You and your sister.  The rumors."

Jaime raises his eyebrows at her, his face deadly serious and that look says it all—says everything that Brienne’s been afraid to ask him.

She drops her gaze to her hands and focuses on breathing.  Focuses on breathing because if she breathes then maybe she’ll have time to think of what to do…

* * *

In all the years he’s known Stannis Baratheon, Davos can’t say that there’s been a day where Stannis hasn’t acted precisely the way that he expected him to act.  After that initial getting-to-know period, where he’d learned that Stannis’ teeth-grinding didn’t always mean anger, even if it did always mean displeasure, Davos had come to realize that of all the people on this earth, he might be one of the few that truly understood Stannis.

His brothers certainly didn’t—that was for sure.  But then again, Davos had learned from his own sons that sometimes siblings don’t know you well, but they know you  _best_ , know how to hit where it hurts and don’t necessarily care that they do it.

Davos sometimes wonders, after he’s been dragged along to dinners with Robert or Renly, why it is that Stannis lets Robert’s professions that Ned Stark was “the brother he chose” hurt him so much.   _Or maybe he’s just starved for attention the way that Allard is_ , he muses.  Sometimes he wants to grab the man by the shoulders and shake him, though, because Robert isn’t the only one with a brother he chose.  But telling Stannis that, of course, would only result in the grinding of teeth.

So Davos just watches. Davos waits.  Davos hopes that one day, there will be a flash of recognition, and Stannis will realize he’s got a brother that loves him too.

* * *

It’s Jon that finds him in the end.  Or rather, Jon who thinks he finds him.  It’s hard to know just yet.  And Robb just sits there a quarter of a mile off, watching as Jon goes in with his team to extract Theon and detain Snow.  

He can tell that it’s jarring for Jon, to be hunting another whose surname is Snow.  He wonders if Jon remembers Ramsay Snow from when they were both Slytherins.  Robb already knows he’s not going to ask that question.

He wants to fight too, wants to be in the thick of it, wants to be sending spells and shouting and raging that  _how dare_  this man think he can hurt his friend.  But Jon had told him he’d have Robb stunned and detained if he tried anything stupid, that there was a protocol of magical law enforcement to follow, and if Robb didn’t follow it, then Robb could land himself in all sorts of trouble for an obstruction of justice, even if technically he wasn’t trying to obstruct.

So he grits his teeth, determined not to cock it all up even though it goes against every single fiber of his being to sit here and do  _nothing_.

He has to remind himself that he’s not doing nothing—not now.  If not for him, Jon wouldn’t be here.  But still, he might have found Snow on his own.   _And ended up dead_.   _And Theon too_.  The words are chilling, and Robb doesn’t like thinking them. He knows nothing about Ramsay Snow, but he knows that Jon was edgy about him, and Jon doesn’t get edgy easily.  

 _You’re making a mountain out of a mole hill_ , he thinks to himself.   _Because you don’t like being sat on your arse not doing anything.  So just suck it up it will all be over soon._

And he keeps squinting, and thinks he might hear shouting.

* * *

He’s oddly proud of her.

It’s amazing how many people will refuse to see the obvious—Cersei’s children looking more like him than Robert, the way that they are so close— _so_  close.  Even his father, when they were younger, would turn a blind eye to them sharing a bed, because they were twins.  

But not Brienne.  She’d been blind to it at first, but she sussed it out in the end—which was more than most of the idiots Jaime saw on a regular basis could say.

But it was more than that—that she’d figured it out and said something.  Now that—that was impressive.

She hadn’t come into work since, of course.  She was nervous, probably, afraid he’d have her out the door.  He could.  He should, really.  She’s too bloody honorable, and she’ll probably get him into a world of trouble.

 _But she’s right,_ he thinks.   _She’s right, though what about…_ he wasn’t sure.  He just knew that he was proud of her and that that was more than enough to be getting on with at the moment.

* * *

She wasn’t going to be lovesick.  She refused. She’d seen enough people do that before and she knew it would get her nowhere,  _especially_  given that he wasn’t even at bloody Hogwarts anymore.  

So she threw herself into quidditch, into classes, into—and Merlin she’d never thought she’d be that person who started before the Christmas holidays—OWL revisions.  She laughed with Bran, and snuck up behind Rickon and swung him around, and even didn’t make any comments to Sansa about how Jon was still smarting over  _it_ , even if he wasn’t going to tell her that.

It was odd, sometimes, that she felt that Sansa was so much less a grown-up than she pretended.  All airs of maturity, but without the substance. She didn’t know where that thought had come from.  Maybe because she was determined not to be as horribly lovesick over Gendry as Sansa had been over Joffrey. It was funny how seeing something you didn’t want to become could shape you quite as much as seeing something you did want to become.

She focused on her History of Magic project on Nymeria Ny Sar, and got top marks on her Arithmancy homework, and coached Gryffindor into a stupendous victory over Hufflepuff and only thought about Gendry every now and then.  Only every now and then, and when she did, she  _didn’t_  think about the way his arms felt about her, how strong his hands were when he swung his beater’s bat, or how his eyes seemed to light up when he saw her.

Maybe if his eyes didn’t light up it wouldn’t be so bad.  Yes.  That was it. She would blame his eyes and how crystal blue they were.  If it weren’t for his eyes, she wouldn’t be…wouldn’t be…pretending not to be lovesick.

* * *

Jon was very glad that Robb had done as he’d been bloody told and stayed away.  Robb wasn’t prepared to see things like this.  Robb fancied himself a man of action, and maybe, in another life, he would have been, but he was the bookish brother, the one who’d thrown himself into legal theory and not legal practice and if he’d been with them when they stormed Snow’s hide-out, he would have been ill, or in the way, or worse.

Theon’s a mess.  His teeth have been shattered and some of his fingers and toes are missing.  Nothing Skelegrow won’t fix, Jon thinks, but all the same, it’s definitely enough to turn his stomach, and Jon had training for this sort of thing.  Snow himself isn’t much of a threat.  He’s sneaky, but no more wily than Jon, and when push comes to shove, no one can out-power Grenn and he’s struck dumb and numb pretty quickly.

Theon though—Theon’s laughing like a maniac, and when he sees Jon for the first time, he starts giggling as though something’s funny, even though nothing’s funny about anything. “Snow, Snow, you have to remember your name!” he practically sings, as though Jon could have forgotten that he’s always been Jon Snow, not Jon Stark, and certainly not Jon  _Targaryen_.

He’s grateful Robb doesn’t see him stun Theon so he won’t fight back while they extract him. Grateful that when he goes to tell Robb that they’ve taken care of everything, he won’t ever have seen Theon’s skinless thumbs or his shattered smile.

* * *

“You could have at least told me,” Robb says to Theon, “Told any of us,” he adds quickly, looking around at Asha and Jon.

Asha’s usually got a smirk in her eyes even if it doesn’t play at her lips, but there’s nothing close to humored in her face now.  Theon wishes she’d smile.  Wishes her eyes would twinkle.  Because if her eyes twinkle, then he knows things will be all right.

“Why didn’t you?” Robb asks. He reaches out and takes Theon’s hand, and Theon starts staring down at his fingers.  The healer on the ward had grown them back and fixed his teeth without any trouble, but they didn’t feel the same as his old fingers.  She said that was just his skin being all fresh but Theon is sure it was something else.  He looks at Robb, then at Asha, then down at his hand again and he smiles.

It doesn’t hurt to smile—at least, not the way it had, sending stinging pain through his gums to his eyeballs.  It hurts in a whole different way and Theon doesn’t like it.  He doesn’t like any of it.  But he can’t answer Robb.  He doesn’t know how.  

 _I was a fool_ , he thinks.   _I was an idiot._ But he can’t say it.  He’s never been able to, and he doesn’t know if he can start now.

* * *

“I’m not after Petyr, Lysa.”

It’s the first thing out of Cat’s mouth after she barges her way into Lysa’s flat and Lysa stiffens. Cat’s always been forceful like that, telling her something is true when Lysa knows that it’s not— _knows_  it.  It’s always been like that.  Always.

“I never said you were,” Lysa says, doing her best to sound icy.  But it’s hard to sound icy with Cat.  She doesn’t know why.  She can manage with Edmure, but not with Cat.  

“Look,” Cat goes to the stove and turned on the kettle without even asking Lysa if she could. Cat has a way of treating Lysa’s home like her own, of making her feel like a little sister again even when this is  _her_ house,  _not_  Catelyn’s.  “Look, I promise you I want nothing to do with him ever again.  And I won’t tell you to cut him from your life,”  _as if that’s not about to come out of your mouth,_ “but I hope you’ll believe me when I say that I am steering clear of him from now on.  And if he knows what’s good for him, he’ll steer clear of me.”  Lysa raises her eyebrows.  That—that is new.  She almost doesn’t want to ask the question, but is too curious.

“What did he do?”

Cat looks at her, and Lysa sees vitriol boiling in her eyes, but Cat just shakes her head, almost imperceptibly.

It’s that, more than anything else, that unnerves Lysa.

* * *

Sansa lies awake in bed, staring up at the ceiling, listening to the faint sounds of breathing of the other girls in the dormitory.  They’ve been asleep for what feels like hours now, but Sansa’s still wide awake—wide awake and reeling, feeling as though every curl in her brain is sending off sparks of thought right as she is trying to settle down. She tosses, she turns, and she tries to understand what it is that is keeping her awake.  She tries, and fails, and with each failure, she is more awake than she was before, more  curious about what is niggling at her.

She doesn’t know what it is.

She never knows what it is.

And that, itself, is it. She blinks once, twice, and closes her eyes and sinks into her mind again.  She doesn’t know what’s upsetting her, it’s almost like it’s there, just below the surface, just beneath every smile, every little thing that she’s always said was all right.  Something that she doesn’t understand, doesn’t know, doesn’t—

Why doesn’t she know? Why does she never know?  Why is it that she’s more likely to believe it when Ned, or Bran, or even Arya tells her that she is something, but if she were to think it herself…

She wonders how well she knows herself.  She fears she doesn’t know herself at all.  And she wants to blame Joffrey for it, but she’s not sure it’s truly Joffrey that did it.  

She doesn’t know what did it.  She’s frightened to know what did it.  But at the same time, she’s determined to know what did it.

* * *

Rickon’s got a bounce in his step as he leaves the Great Hall on Saturday after breakfast.  He had gotten a letter from home, asking him if he wanted to invite anyone to visit over the Christmas holidays.  

A few weeks before, he would have been saddened by that note.  He would have looked forlornly at his classmates in Slytherin and wondered if they would even  _want_  to spend part of their holidays with him.  But how he’s smiling.

He remembers Robb bringing Theon back from break.  Sansa’s brought Jeyne Poole home for as long as they’ve been friends, and Arya’s had everyone from Hot Pie and Lommy to Gendry even though Gendry was way older than her.  Bran’s had the Reeds round and now it’s his turn and he’s got a friend he’d like to invite. And, what’s more, it doesn’t even feel like base treachery inviting a Gryffindor, because if Robb, Arya, and Sansa are friends with Slytherins, and Bran’s friends with Hufflepuffs, then he can certainly have friends in Gryffindor.  And besides, it’s not like houses matter anyway—at least, not in this. Weasel’s the first person who was nice to him on purpose, or at least it feels that way.  Why shouldn’t he invite her over for Christmas?

It puts a grin on his face as he makes his way to the library to begin his Charms homework, because,  what’s more, he thinks that she’ll even want to come.

* * *

“Uncle Rodrik wants us over for Christmas this year,” Asha says to him, leaning against the doorway of his bedroom.

Once, she’d been annoyed that he hadn’t made any moves towards getting his own place.  Now she’s glad he’s there, that he’s safe, that he’s close.  He’s pale, and thin.  His hair has gone a bit grey from the stress of everything, and he’s even jumpier than he was when he’d first gotten back from Egypt.  But when he smiles now, it’s not a lie, not him pretending he’s all right. If he smiles, it’s a real smile, and it’s different now—less toothy.

“Robb’s invited me again. I’m sure you could come.”

Asha bites back a grimace. Theon always went to the Starks for Christmas growing up.  She hadn’t minded before, because if he didn’t want to be around the Greyjoy uncles, she couldn’t exactly blame him.  But Uncle Rodrik isn’t Uncle Aeron.  

Part of her wants to roll her eyes at Theon and say that blood comes first and he should go to Rodrik’s. But Theon’s got a hopeful look in his eyes, and she can tell he means it when he says he’s sure she could come.   _He wants me to come_ , Asha thought almost in wonder.  He’d never wanted her near his Stark friends when he’d been younger. But now he wants her there.

“Lunch with Uncle Rodrik, dinner with the Starks?” she proposes, and Theon smiles.

* * *

_“I’m not after Petyr, Lysa.”  “I’m steering clear of him from now on.”_

There had been no prescription, no anything, just Catelyn saying that she was never going to see Petyr ever,  _ever_ again.  She should revel in that, shouldn’t she?  She should celebrate.  Cat was  _gone_.  Something had happened to make Cat never want him, and Cat wasn’t just not wanting him, she was _avoiding_ him.  He would be all Lysa’s now.  All of him and all of her together.  That should make her happy, shouldn’t it?  It should fill the void left by Robert’s death, shouldn’t it?

 _I’ve always loved him_.   _Always.  I’ve always loved him.  And Cat doesn’t want him._

 _And he doesn’t want me_.

She hates that thought. That thought she’s pushed down so deep inside ever since she was a little girl but it comes bubbling up now.  He only wanted Cat—she knows that, she always has. She’s never been good enough for him. She’s never been good enough for anyone—not Cat, not Father, not Jon, only good enough for Robert and Robert’s dead. They’re all dead except Cat and he wanted Cat and not her, and it doesn’t matter if Cat doesn’t want him because Cat not wanting him won’t make him want Lysa.

Air comes in and out of her in short spurts, short gasps and that’s what crying feels like—not tears on your face, the feeling that the world is ending around you.  That’s what crying feels like.

* * *

It had been raining on their first date.  Cat recalled it distinctly.  She’d spent an age on her hair and it was ruined within four seconds and she’d done her best to hide her frustration from Ned.  It hadn’t mattered in the end, of course.  In the end, they had been drenched but it hadn’t mattered because there had been something so right about walking through the rain with Ned, even though they could easily have both apparated to wherever it was they wanted to go.

She thinks about that date on rainy days like today.  She stares out of her office window into grey London and all she can think is of the way that Ned had flushed when she’d told him he had a nice smile, and the way his hand had felt so warm in hers while the rain chilled the air around them.  

She closes her eyes and wonders what she would have done if she’d known on that day just how profoundly Ned would lie to her.  Would she have loved him anyway?  Would she have cared?  Would she have run to someone else for comfort, instead of taking solace in the losses of the war with this man who had also lost so much?  Would she have had her children—five beautiful babies each so distinct and yet so similar?

Catelyn finds peace in the rain.  She always has, but there’s some part of her that rises out of the past, some smiling girl who had no idea what she wanted to do with her life and just…just is a part of her somehow.  Soaked in the rain and newly in love and hopeful that maybe something good may yet come.

* * *

Catelyn reads Rickon’s letter over again, smiling to herself.  

_Dear Mum,_

_Very excited for Christmas, even if Dondarrion is giving us far too much homework to do over the holidays.  Bran says he always does that though and I should get used to it._

_I asked my friend Weasel if she wanted to come over for Christmas and she said she’d love to. She’d been planning on staying at school.  Hope it’s still ok that she’s coming._

_Got to run._

_Love you._

_See you soon,_

_Rickon_

“What’s got that smile on your face?” Ned asks.  He’s finally awake, and pouring himself some coffee.

“Rickon’s inviting a friend over for Christmas,” Cat explains.

“I thought he was having trouble making friends?” Ned asks, a look of delighted surprise crossing his face.  Cat bit her lip.  She’d tried to write to Rickon as often as possible, but especially with everything that had been going on with Ned…She’d tried.  She would keep trying.  And he would be home soon.

“Seems to have made one at least,” she responds at least.  “Though I have no idea if this Weasel is a boy or a girl.  Where will they sleep?”

* * *

“What’ve you got to be anxious about?  It’s  _Christmas_!” Jojen asks him over lunch.  And it is Christmas.  Tomorrow, he’ll beo n the Hogwarts Express home.  But that hasn’t stopped Bran from feeling like he’s sitting on the edge of his seat, like there’s something he hasn’t thought of, that there’s something he’s unprepared for.

“You’re right,” he lies, pushing his mashed potatoes around on his plate with his fork, “Nothing to worry about.”

But it doesn’t feel that way—it really doesn’t.  It feels like going home will be different this time.  Different, and what if mum and dad are still fighting, and what if Jon’s not there for Christmas, but he’s with his other family now, and what if Aunt Lysa’s refuses to see people because she’s still mourning Robert’s death and…And they aren’t his problems, but they’re his  _family_  and he  _cares_.

So yes—yes there is something to worry about.  

He looks around the Great Hall.  Sansa is sitting next to her boyfriend, and he is whispering something in her ear that’s making her blush.  Arya’s arguing with Hot Pie and Lommy.  Rickon’s sitting at the Gryffindor Table too, a little further down, his face scrunched in concentration over some homework he’s doing with Weasel.

 _At least I won’t be alone_ , he thinks.   _They’re coming home too._

* * *

Arya’s the first one off the train when it pulls into King’s Cross Station.  She’s the first one through the barrier back into Muggle London, her head practically rotating on her shoulders like an owl.  She sees many wizarding parents waiting—she can tell them from the muggles because they’re all dressed in the style of muggle clothing that was fashionable when they went to school, if not a hodge-podge that looked mildly ridiculous.  

And then she sees him.  She lets out a squeal of glee and pelts at him, diving into his chest and wrapping her arms around him so tightly that he doesn’t even have the breath to say anything at all.  She’s got one of his arms pinned to his side with her hug, but the other one is free and he reaches up and runs his hands through her hair.

“I missed you,” she says into his jumper.

“I missed you too, little sister,” Jon replies, and Arya squeezes him tighter.

* * *

Rickon and Weasel are arguing about what’s the best kind of pudding.

Arya and Gendry are discussing Wigtown’s playoff standings, and quidditch tactics.

Sansa is singing quietly as she helps Catelyn cook dinner.  

Bran’s listening to Robb explain the latest updates about Theon to dad.

And Jon’s just standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, a butterbeer in his hand, his eyes flicking around to each of them, and whenever one of them catches his eyes, he sees warmth rise in their faces, that automatic, “You all right?  Come on over,” that he never really felt when he went over for tea at the Targaryens.

He’d forgotten how full of life this house could be, when everyone was home from school.

* * *

Ned was right, of course.  She had been overthinking it.  Well, not entirely, but a little bit.  She can tell that Jon is still annoyed at her, but angry? No.  No, he isn’t angry.

If anything, it seems as though he’s  _less_  angry than he had been even before the start of term, that there’s something in him that’s…calm.  It’s reeling, perhaps, but there’s a sense of just…knowing the truth now.  Instead of wondering what he is and why he is, he can just figure out how to be.  

It makes Sansa smile to see it.  She’s glad Jon has that, even if he is still annoyed at her.  She hopes…she hopes that she can one day find that calm herself.

* * *

Christmas Eve at their house is always a lovely affair.  They have people over for drinks and nibbles, and the kids have a huge snowball fight outside.

It’s quieter than usual this year.  None of the Baratheons could make it—they had to go and “show face” to the Tyrell, which Robert was displeased with.  He didn’t like being dragged anywhere by his brothers, and if Renly was going to start dragging him places, well…

Lysa hadn’t come, and Catelyn couldn’t decide if that was for the good or not.  Edmure is there, with Roslin, and he promises he’ll look in on her tomorrow, but Catelyn wishes she’d come for Christmas. She can’t imagine what Christmas would be like alone after the loss of a son.  

Theon Greyjoy doesn’t join the snow fight, either.  He sits by the window and watched as Jon pelts snow at Rickon, and as Bran flies overhead and divebombs everyone from above.  He holds a mug of tea in his hands and smiles whenever anyone looks at him, but Catelyn can tell he doesn’t really want to be smiling.

Catelyn though…she does want to smile.  She wants to smile, and be happy, and listen to Christmas carols on the wireless.  She wants to hold Ned’s hand, and know that if Christmas is a time for family, well, she’s not upset in her own home at Christmas.

* * *

Things are hardly perfect.  Nothing ever is, somehow.  Everything, one way or another, fails at something.

But that doesn’t mean it isn’t good.  

That’s what Ned thinks as he wakes up early on Christmas morning to make breakfast for everyone before they open their presents.  Rickon isn’t awake yet—a miracle in and of itself, because Rickon is the one who  _always_  gets up early for presents—and the house is still, except for the faint sounds of sleeping—a snore, a mattress shifting under someone who is tossing and turning.

Things aren’t perfect.  Cat and Jon are still coming to terms with everything, Robb’s nervous about Theon, Benjen’s still mad at him for how he handled everything.  But things are all right.  Arya laughs, Rickon’s making friends, Sansa seems content in her new relationship, and Bran is growing into a very thoughtful young man.

Things aren’t perfect, but they are good.

 


End file.
